How to deal with file name starts with spaces in bash?

Question

Normally, example shows usage like:

for i in $(ls); do echo ${i}; done

But if there is a file (or directory) named " screw", then the above line will give out wrong result.

How to solve?

possible duplicate of [File names with spaces in BASH](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3967707/file-names-with-spaces-in-bash) — Kamiccolo, Nov 13 '13 at 08:16

score 7 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 13 '13 at 08:16

7

No please don't use/parse ls's output. Use it like this:

for i in *; do echo "${i}"; done

Alternatively you can use printf (thanks to @ruakh):

printf '%s\n' *

answered Nov 13 '13 at 08:16

anubhava

1

You can still use `printf "%s\n" "$i"` in the for loop, for cases where an explicit loop is required. – chepner Nov 13 '13 at 12:47

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 13 '13 at 10:58

0

IFS="$(echo -e "\b\r")";
for f in $(ls); do
    echo "$f";
done

In case you are forced to stick to parsing ls output (which you shouldn't)

answered Nov 13 '13 at 10:58

user2599522

Both backspace and carriage return, technically, are legal characters in file names (as are newlines, which this lets slip through), so one really shouldn't use `ls` like this, period. – chepner Nov 13 '13 at 12:48

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 23 '16 at 22:02

0

You can always use find with print

find ./ -print | xargs echo

answered Oct 23 '16 at 22:02

user2599522

3 Answers3