How to add single quotes to every word in a string

Question

I Have a couple of arguments in my variable. I want to replace each variable with single quotes, separated by a comma.

var_list=emp location  branch.

I want my output like:

var_list='emp', 'location',  'branch'

codeforester · Accepted Answer · 2021-01-30T07:58:28.820

2

Using Bash parameter expansion

delimited="'${var_list//[[:space:]]/"','"}'"

If you have multiple spaces in the string, then use extended globbing:

shopt -s extglob
delimited="'${var_list//+([[:space:]])/"','"}'"

Using an array

words=($var_list)                           # create array from string, using word splitting
printf -v delimited ",'%s'" "${words[@]}"   # yields ",'one','two',..."
delimited=${delimited:1}                    # remove the leading ','

Using a loop

delim=''
for word in $var_list; do                   # rely on word splitting by shell
  delimited="$delimited$delim'$word'"
  delim=","
done

answered Jun 19 '18 at 15:42

codeforester

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Thanks, @codeforester, I am using Bash shell and I tried both the ways, it is solving my problem. – AbhinavVaidya8 Jun 20 '18 at 02:15
I use Bash shell, and I don't know why the first approach doesn't work for me. – Hui Zheng Jan 30 '21 at 05:30

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 30 '21 at 05:35

0

Thank you @codeforester I tried the first approach

delimited="'${var_list//[[:space:]]/"','"}'"

but it doesn't work. I got

'word_1"', '"word_2"', '"word_3'

Then I revised to statement to

delimited="'${var_list//[[:space:]]/','}'"

It works correctly.

'word_1', 'word_2', 'word_3'

answered Jan 30 '21 at 05:35

Hui Zheng

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What is your original string? I tried it on `var_list="one two three"` and I did get `'one','two','three'`. What Bash version are you using? – codeforester Jan 30 '21 at 08:01

How to add single quotes to every word in a string

2 Answers2

Using Bash parameter expansion

Using an array

Using a loop