How do you pass a variable to script and then get a dictionary value from the response?

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6

Because splitting and variable interpolation and de-quoting happens at the same time - and so any quotes within a variable are meaningless.

For example:

% ls "a b" "c d"
ls: a b: No such file or directory
ls: c d: No such file or directory

The parameters to ls are:

  • ls
  • a b
  • c d

Where as:

% v='ls "a b" "c d"'
% echo $v
ls "a b" "c d"
% $v
ls: "a: No such file or directory
ls: "c: No such file or directory
ls: b": No such file or directory
ls: d": No such file or directory

Not what you want.

You can use eval:

% eval $v
ls: a b: No such file or directory
ls: c d: No such file or directory

But honestly, I don’t really understand what eval does so I don’t know why it works.

See: I'm trying to put a command in a variable, but the complex cases always fail!.

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