filename contains space and wildcard in a variable

Question

I receive files which names contain spaces and change every week (the name contains the week number)

IE, the file for this week looks like This is the file - w

Answer 1

Use a bash array

v=( /dir/This\ is\ the\ file - w*.csv )

If there is guaranteed to be only one matching file, you can just expand $v. Otherwise, you can get the full list of matching files by expanding as

"${v[@]}"

or individual matches using

"${v[0]", "${v[1]}", etc

Answer 2

echo /dir/"This is the file - w"*.csv

or — you almost tried that —

echo /dir/This\ is\ the\ file\ -\ w*.csv

Answer 3

First of all, you should not use the dollar sign in an assignment.

Moreover, wildcard expansion is not called in an assignment. You can use process substitution for example, though:

FILE=$(echo 'This is the file - w'*.csv)

Note that the wildcard itself is not included in the quotes. Quotes prevent wildcard expansion.