In the OSX Terminal, how do I open a file with a space in it's name?

Question

There is a script I use that sets up virtual hosts for me and then opens up the url using safari, however, I'm trying to change the script so it opens up in Google Chrome instead.

This line is giving me problems.

OPEN_COMMAND="/usr/bin/open -a /Applications/Google Chrome.app"

I have also tried...

OPEN_COMMAND="/usr/bin/open -a /Applications/Google\ Chrome.app"

..and...

OPEN_COMMAND="/usr/bin/open -a /Applications/'Google Chrome.app'"

The error says the file doesn't exist.

This is where the command is used at the bottom of the script...

# - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
# Launch the new URL in the browser
#
/bin/echo -n "Launching virtualhost... "
$OPEN_COMMAND http://$VIRTUALHOST/
/bin/echo "done"

The script is hosted here: http://code.google.com/p/virtualhost-sh/

Answer 1

This is actually a bit tricky. When you put your command into quotes you already escape the special characters in that string.

If the string gets expanded when you invoke the variable as command the (automatically) escaped charackters get unescaped. This leads to this somewhat unexpected behaviour because all the whitespaces in that string are interpreted the same way but should be interpreted differently.

This can be achived by putting command and filepath into seperate variables and only qoute the part where you have to escape the whitespaces:

#!/bin/bash

COMMAND="open -a"
APPPATH="/Applications/Google Chrome.app"

$COMMAND "$APPPATH"

For your edit:

OPEN_COMMAND="/usr/bin/open -a"
APPPATH="/Applications/Google Chrome.app"
...
$OPEN_COMMAND "$APPPATH" http://$VIRTUALHOST/

Answer 2

See BashFAQ #50 -- there's no form of quoting/escaping you can do when setting the command variable that'll work, because after it's used it gets broken into words without any regard to what quotes, escapes, etc it may happen to contain. There are, however, a few ways to change both the definition and invocation to make it work (roughly in order from most to least flexible):

Use a shell function rather than a variable:

open_command() { open -a "/Applications/Google Chrome.app" "$@"; }
open_command "http://$VIRTUALHOST/"

Use an array rather than a simple variable:

open_command=( open -a "/Applications/Google Chrome.app" )
"${open_command[@]}" "http://$VIRTUALHOST/"

Use separate variables (like what mugen kenichi suggested, but with a variable name that won't clobber PATH):

open_command="open -a"
open_app="/Applications/Google Chrome.app"
$open_command "$open_app" "http://$VIRTUALHOST/"

(note that this last one won't let you fall back to using the default browser -- there's no good way to leave off the application.)

Answer 3

The third one ought to work. If it's not, then that means that something is expanding the string multiple times, which means you need to escape the spaces multiple times. The usual cause of this is that somewhere elsewhere in the script is referring to $OPEN_COMMAND without putting quotes round it. Ensure that you're doing stuff like:

fnord="$OPEN_COMMAND"

...and not:

fnord=$OPEN_COMMAND

The other trick is to change the place in the script where it's trying to run $OPEN_COMMAND to:

echo "$OPEN_COMMAND"

...to ensure the quotes have made it through intact.