redirect cat to variable

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

hello
just i saw a really strange for cat

i have file (file1) contains line /home/rajiv/proj1/*.txt

now applied a commonds

DDPATH="$(cat file1)"
echo $DDPATH

it shows all the txt files in that folder like /home/rajiv/proj1/read1.txt /home/rajiv/proj1/read2.txt /home/rajiv/proj1/read3.txt ......

but i need only /home/rajiv/proj1/*.txt.
can anyone helps
shailesh

2

this works..

DDPATH=`cat file1`
echo "$DDPATH"

whatever you do just make sure you double quote your DDPATH variable when you print (or rather echo!)

cheers,
Hemanth

3

oops not working...
:frowning:

also i want to use this variable further in my script
BR
shailesh

4

What shell? Could you post the output that demonstrates expansion of the * with quoted variable?

5

It does work for me...

Here's the file output
bash-2.05b$ cat file1
/home/hemanth/*.txt

...and here are my commands...
bash-2.05b$ DDPATH=`cat file1`
bash-2.05b$ echo "$DDPATH"
/home/hemanth/*.txt

Send me your output so that I can check.

6

See the following example:

> cat file1
/home/jg/tmp/file_lookup/*.dat
> echo "$DDPATH"
/home/jg/tmp/file_lookup/*.dat
> echo $DDPATH
/home/jg/tmp/file_lookup/sample.dat
> echo /home/jg/tmp/file_lookup/*.dat
/home/jg/tmp/file_lookup/sample.dat
>

So, try putting your variable with the echo inside quotes. echo "$DDPATH"

This is the same as typing the following:

>vi *.dat

Which would sequentially open for editing every .dat file you have.

7

yes if we do echo "$DPATH" it gives proper result. but when i want to use this variable for another use like as below -

for f in "$DPATH" `find -type f`;
do
processLine 
done

it give wrong result like it cant read file with *.mk in the folder.
BR
shailesh

8

It's not clear what you're trying to achieve with the above command, but if you need to generate filenames you should not quote the variable in that case.