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I'm writing some bash scripts to make easier submitting jobs to a compute cluster using the oar syntax, and for the option I need they say that they use SQL syntax (option -p).

For some context, here is the command I am using:

oarsub -q production -p "GPU = 'GTX 980'" -l "nodes=1,walltime=00:05" -I

Where I want to be able to change the GTX 980 and 00:05 with inputs given by the user.

I have had success with just taking time as an input and leaving the GPU fixed:

oarsub -q production -p "GPU = 'GTX 980'" -l "nodes=1,walltime=$1" -I

I have already tried using double quotes as stated on these answers 1, 2, 3. But it seems like parameter expansion keeps happening with:

echo "$2"
oarsub -q production -p "GPU = "$2"" -l "nodes=1,walltime=$1" -I

manuel@machine$: bash job_script.sh 00:05 'GTX 980'
GTX 980
...
/!\ You asked for an Interactive job SO I will ignore arguments: 980 ; Is your syntax right?
...
[ADMISSION RULE] Job properties : (GPU = GTX) AND maintenance = 'NO'
Generate a job key...
Bad resource request (ERROR:  column "gtx" does not exist
LINE 4: ...alltime >= 300 OR max_walltime <= 0)) AND ((GPU = GTX) AND m...

Where it seems like it is not taking the whole 'GTX 980' as a complete string on, but instead is splitting them into 'GTX' and '980', because of the: /!\ You asked for an Interactive job SO I will ignore arguments: 980 ; Is your syntax right? warning.

Is is a way I could pass the GPU name as a bash input argument to the command? Or it might be some problem between how bash formats and passes the input to oarsub?

Manuel Alejandro Diaz Zapata
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    try `oarsub -q production -p "GPU = '$2'" -l "nodes=1,walltime=$1" -I` – oguz ismail Apr 27 '19 at 09:39
  • @manuel, do you understand why this is the correct answer? Consider how your double quotes start and end – glenn jackman Apr 27 '19 at 12:25
  • In the original command, `oarsub -q production -p "GPU = 'GTX 980'" -l "nodes=1,walltime=00:05" -I`, the `GTX 980` part is *already in double-quotes*. Adding another set of double-quotes effectively cancels the original ones, removing their effect. – Gordon Davisson Apr 27 '19 at 18:09
  • Thanks a lot @oguzismail, so I just needed to put the second argument between **single quotes** and not double quotes. Does this also mean that the second argument needs to be passed in single and not double quotes right? – Manuel Alejandro Diaz Zapata Apr 28 '19 at 10:54
  • I don't even know what oarsub is for, I just pointed out the quotation issue – oguz ismail Apr 28 '19 at 10:57
  • @ManuelAlejandroDiazZapata: If there is a chance that its (the other positional parameter's) value contains blanks, you should include it in single quotes as well, like so `oarsub -q production -p "GPU = '$2'" -l "nodes=1,walltime='$1'" -I`. – Jürgen Apr 28 '19 at 11:01

1 Answers1

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Oguz ismail's advise in this comment is perfectly correct. However, if the value of the other positional parameter, $1, might also contain some spaces, you should quote it as well. And since these quotes do no harm otherwise, quote it in any case:

oarsub -q production -p "GPU = '$2'" -l "nodes=1,walltime='$1'" -I

Please note: The calling shell expands this to something like

oarsub -q production -p GPU = 'blah blah' -l nodes=1,walltime='foo bar' -I

where GPU = 'blah blah' and nodes=1,walltime='foo bar' are treated as single words that are passed as single arguments to oarsub as it should be.

Apart from that, in general, it is not necessary to hierarchically nest the quoted parts of a command line: You may simply concatenate them, basically like so:

oarsub -q production -p 'GPU = '\'"$2"\' -l 'nodes=1,walltime='\'"$1"\' -I

In this way you have full control of what parts are expanded and what parts are subject to word splitting. However, this is not necessary in your case. So you can just follow the suggestion above, which are by far easier to read and therefore clearer.

Jürgen
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