Bash Xargs With Cp Dies On Directory Names Containing Brackets

This might be something really trivial, but drives me mad...

Please copy the following little script into a shell file and run it!

#dont' worry about these lines, just setting up the environment I heve here...
mkdir ./test\ \(\ something\ \)
touch ./test\ \(\ something\ \)/a.txt
echo ./test\ \(\ something\ \) > file_list
DIR=`cat ./file_list`


#Here is the problem:
echo -ne $DIR/a.txt '\x00' $DIR/b.txt | xargs -0 -n2 cp

#I receive the following error message:
#cp: cannot stat `./test ( something )/a.txt ': No such file or directory

Any idea why the cp command does not work???

Any help would be appreciated!!


Sandor Laza

Try:

echo -ne $DIR/a.txt'\x00'$DIR/b.txt | xargs -0 -n2 cp

A much simpler solution might be:

cp "$DIR/a.txt" "$DIR/b.txt"

[qu ote name='ken_yap' date='Jan 6 2008, 01:16 AM' post='221548']
A much simpler solution might be:

cp "$DIR/a.txt" "$DIR/b.txt"
[/quote]


Thank you for the help, it works now! The Quotation marks were really needed becouse the shell collapsed the multiple spaces to one without them...

I always learn something new...

Well actually the quotation marks are required to prevent the shell from breaking up the string into multiple arguments separated by spaces, thus giving cp more than two arguments, none of which are correct.