GIVEN:
A string variable containing characters that are used by bash for expansion or as delimiters, e.g.
> path="/this/path/contains whitespace/and/asterisk */myfile.txt"
GOAL:
I want to expand the variable in a way that those bash syntax elements are backslashed (or disabled but not simply quoted), i.e. the output of solution would be
> solution $path
/this/path/contains\ whitespace/and/asterisk\ \*/myfile.txt
QUESTION:
Isn’t there a command in bash that does that, rather than having to struggle with all special characters on my own?
>Solution :
Use the %q specifier of printf (a bash builtin):
path="/this/path/contains whitespace/and/asterisk */myfile.txt"
printf '%q\n' "$path"