How do you parse through a subdirectory where the path contains spaces?

Question

I'm trying to parse through a set of files in a directory on a mapped drive. However, I can't seem to resolve an issue that seems to be because of spaces in the path to the subdirectory. Would appreciate any help! Thank you.

#!/bin/bash
FILES=/home/user/.gvfs/analysis\$\ on\ server.university.edu/users/username/m/BED_files/*
#FILES=/home/user/Desktop #this works

for f in "${FILES}"
do
    echo $f
done

Answer 1

You can't use the wildcard as part of the variable if you are also using quotes. Note that in the array variable syntax @jasonwryan suggested, it is looking at the contents of the directory at the time the array is initialized, rather than when the loop is executed.

#!/bin/sh
DIR='/home/user/.gvfs/analysis$ on server.university.edu/users/username/m/BED_files'

for f in "$DIR"/*
do
    echo "$f"
done

If you really need the wildcard to be defined in a variable, putting it it in a separate one will work:

#!/bin/sh
DIR='/home/user/.gvfs/analysis$ on server.university.edu/users/username/m/BED_files'
FILES='*.txt'

for f in "$DIR"/$FILES
do
    echo "$f"
done

Answer 2

Verify that you have permissions all the way through to the final subdirectory and @jasonwryan answer should work.

Answer 3

If you want to work with an arrayed expansion result in a basic POSIX shell you have to take care with both $IFS and filename generation. You can work safely with unquoted variables - but it is usually not the most simple way to do it.

Shell's are designed to work first and foremost with arguments - so I suggest you use the argument array:

set -- "${FILES%/*}"/*

You'll have to check a glob's result though - in any POSIX shell if the glob doesn't resolve it will still remain an iterable parameter. This is true of for var in glob* as well - without testing the results you cannot be sure that you're actually working with a file. So...

for f do [ -e "$f" ] || [ -L "$f" ] && printf %s\\n "$f"; done

You can iterate over the items in your arg array like for arg do ...;done. You can also address them from within the loop as "$1" "$2" and etc, or as a whole with either of "$@" and "$*" depending. The array remains set when the loop is complete.

One last note though, as I mentioned before, filename generation is a configurable feature of the shell. It can be disabled w/ set -f or enabled w/ set +f. What's more, it only works if there are matching filenames in the directory in which you search - if there are none, you just get your unresolved glob back. Globbing also requires both search and execute permissions for a directory. So, if you find you cannot resolve a glob match, you might try enabling filename generation, checking the path's permissions, and verifying there are files there in the first place.