handling spaces in paths

[butterfm]

Hi,

I have a tab seperated file with a number of lines in the following format :

file1 c:/some dir/temp c:/some other dir/temp

I'm trring to write a script in MKS toolkit as follows

while read filename sourcedir destdir
do
cp ${sourcedir}/${filename} ${destdir}
done < file

simple enough, except that sourcepath and destpath have spaces in the directory names and therefore I get an error.

Does anybody have any ideas how to handle teh spaces in the path names with the read command.

Thanks,
M

 

[bi]

have you tried putting the directory names in double quotes?

 

[Ygor]

You will also need to set IFS to tab

 

[Annihilannic]

This might do it.

[tt]while IFS=&quot; &quot; read filename sourcedir destdir
do
cp ${sourcedir}/${filename} ${destdir}
done < file[/tt]

The piece between the quotes is a single tab. That way it will stop treating a space as an inter field separator.

Annihilannic.

 

[butterfm]

Hi,

It still gives an error from the mkdir and cp command due to the spaces in the paths.

This is the script:

#!/bin/ksh

SOURCE=c:/temp/reports
DEST=c:/test

cat file | grep -v '#' | while read filename source destination
do
mkdir -p &quot;${DEST}/${destination}&quot;
cp &quot;${SOURCE}/${source}/${filename}&quot; &quot;${DEST}/${destination}&quot;
done

MKSToolkit is an UNIX emulation tool that runs on windows.

Matt.

 

[PHV]

do the IFS=&quot;TabChar&quot; before or inside the while loop.

Hope This Help
PH.

 

[butterfm]

Sorry the script should be

#!/bin/ksh

SOURCE=c:/temp/reports
DEST=c:/test
IFS=&quot;\t&quot;

cat file | grep -v '#' | while read filename source destination
do
mkdir -p &quot;${DEST}/${destination}&quot;
cp &quot;${SOURCE}/${source}/${filename}&quot; &quot;${DEST}/${destination}&quot;
done

Any ideas

 

[Annihilannic]

Slight correction:

[tt]while IFS=&quot; &quot; read filename sourcedir destdir
do
cp &quot;${sourcedir}/${filename}&quot; &quot;${destdir}&quot;
done < file[/tt]

I forgot to quote the operands for the cp command.


Annihilannic.