I am wondering how the arguments given to functions in bash can be properly "redirected" to another function or program.
For example, in Mac OS X there is an open command line program ( man page ) that will open the specified file by default (i.e. open the * .h file in Xcode or the folder in Finder, etc.). I would just call open without arguments to open the current working directory in Finder, or provide it with typical arguments for using it in normal mode.
I thought, "I'm just using a function!" Ha, not so fast, I guess. Here is what I have:
function open { if [ $# -eq 0 ]; then /usr/bin/open . else /usr/bin/open "$*" fi }
Just calling open works fine, it opens the working directory in Finder. Calling open myheader.h works fine, it opens "myheader.h" in Xcode.
However, calling open -a /Applications/TextMate.app myheader.h to try to open the file in TextMate instead of Xcode results in the error "Unable to find the application with the name" /Applications/TextMate.app myheader.h ". It seems to transfer "$*" in /usr/bin/open causes the entire argument list to be redirected as only one argument.
Changing the function to use usr/bin/open $* (without quoting) causes problems in spaces with spaces. Calling open other\ header.h then leads to the error "Files / Users / inspector-g / other and / Users / inspector -g / header.h do not exist", but solves another problem.
There must be some kind of convention for sending arguments, which I just skip.
source share