Can a string be a command line argument?

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

I would like to use a string as a command line argument...is this possible using TCSH? For example say my script is called TEST and I would like to pass a string into my script stating why the test failed.

EXAMPLE:

TEST "Failed due to missing statement"

2

Hi,

In the shell do;

export TEST="Failed due to missing statement"
./scriptname ${TEST}

Hope that helps.

Regards

Dave

3

please post exactly what you are doing.
script name,sourcecode and the parameter you are passing.
May be you have issue with test operator.

4

Thanks for the reply Dave...I am pretty new to this so I'm not following your answer. If you could explain or maybe you misunderstood my question....below is another hack at explaining myself.

I would like the user to be able to run the script named TEST and then for the command line argument enter whatever they want. Then I want to use this string in my script. I know how to get a script argument when its a single word...but not for a string. So for example the user would enter:

TEST "whatever text they desire"

5

Hi thibodc,

Not so hard, the format would be as follows;

./scriptname string

If the string has spaces in it then it would have to be enclosed in quotes like this.

./scriptname "this is a string"

To use in the script you would reference $1 the first command line argument after the scriptname.

As an example;

echo $1

Hope that this helps.

Regards

Dave