How to properly process and print files with spaces in bash

To illustrate the difference between "$@" and $@, let us consider the two following functions:

f() { for i in $@; do echo $i; done; }g() { for i in "$@"; do echo $i; done; }

When calling these function with the parameters a "b c" "d e" the result will be

• function f

f a "b c" "d e" a b c d e

• function g g a "b c" "d e" a b c d e

So when "$@" is within double quotes, the expansion keeps each parameter in a separate word (even if the parameter contains one or more space).When $@ (without double quotes) is expanded, a parameter with a space will be considered as two words.

In your script, you need also to surround argdir and file with double quotes. It is useful when the name of a directory or a file contains space so the name will be considered as a single value. Below your script modified.

#! /bin/bash -urecls () {    # store current working directory    # issues: seems bad to have cwd defined up here and used down below in getAbsolutePath -- too much coupling    cwd=$PWD    # get absolute path of arg    argdir=`getAbsolutePath "$@"`    # check if it exists    if [ ! -e "$argdir" ]; then        echo "$argdir does not exist"        return 1    fi    echo "$argdir exists"    # check if it's a directory    if [ ! -d "$argdir" ]; then        echo "$argdir is not a directory"        return 2    fi    echo "$argdir is a directory"    tab=""    recls_internal "$argdir"    return 0}recls_internal () {    for file in "$@"; do        echo -n "$tab${file##/*/}"        if [ -d "$file" ]; then            # print forward slash to show it's a directory            echo "/"            savedtab=$tab            tab="$tab    "            recls_internal "$file"/*            tab=$savedtab        else            # if not a directory, print a new line            echo ""        fi       done}getAbsolutePath () {    if [ -z ${1##/*} ]; then        echo "$1"    else        echo "$cwd/$1"    fi}