BASH: Trying to continue a string on another line without introducing white space

Question

I have a BASH script with a condition similar to this one:

dirImg="/var/log/junk"
sizeLimitMsg="1 gig"

if [ 0 == "$fileSize1" ];then
    echo "All directories under $dirImg are within the allowed\
    $sizeLimitMsg size limit" >> $emailBody
else
    #do something else
fi

It produces output with extra white space:

All directories under /var/log/junk are within the allowed   1 gig size limit

I'm guessing the extra and unwanted white space is coming from indenting the variable $sizeLimitMsg in the conditional above.

Is there anyway I can both continue that line and indent that code without getting the extra and unwanted white space?

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 27 '18 at 21:00

3

Don't include the indentation into the quotes:

echo "All directories under $dirImg are within the allowed" \
     "$sizeLimitMsg size limit"

answered Nov 27 '18 at 21:00

choroba

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but, `echo "ThereIsAnExtra" \ ` (newline) `"space."` writes `ThereIsAnExtra space.` to stdout. – Ana Nimbus Apr 21 '22 at 15:22
1

@AnaNimbus: So remove the space before \. – choroba Apr 21 '22 at 15:38
As @choroba pointed out: `echo "IsThereAnExtra"\ ` (newline) `"Space?"` writes `IsThereAnExtraSpace?` to stdout. – Ana Nimbus Apr 21 '22 at 16:01

Walter A · Answer 2 · 2018-11-27T22:36:22.090

1

Alternative:

printf "%s %s\n" "All directories under ${dirImg} are within the allowed" \
    "${sizeLimitMsg} size limit" >> "${emailBody}"

edited Nov 27 '18 at 22:36

answered Nov 27 '18 at 22:22

Walter A

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1

Or perhaps `printf 'All directories under %s are within the %i size limit\n' "$dirImg" "$sizeLimitMsg"` perhaps with an escaped newline after the format string if you like. – tripleee Nov 28 '18 at 04:21
@tripleee I agree that is a nicer format. Trying to defend my worse format: I am afraid the OP will try to add random text in the format string and will change the message into `printf "All directories under %s are safe under the %s % limit\n" "${dirImg}" "${percUsageAllowed}"` without escaping `%`. – Walter A Nov 28 '18 at 07:48

BASH: Trying to continue a string on another line without introducing white space

2 Answers2