Exercise

Quoting Exercise

Overview

To stop Bash from expanding special characters or splitting arguments on spaces, you must protect your text with single quotes, double quotes, or backslashes.

In this hands-on exercise you will print a literal asterisk in three ways, assign and expand a variable, compare single and double quotes, and group words into arguments with quotes and backslashes.

Target host: servera

Print a literal asterisk

Connect to servera and work from /tmp. First observe the unquoted result, then protect the asterisk with single quotes, double quotes, and a backslash so it reaches echo literally.
```
ssh student@servera
cd /tmp
echo *
echo '*'
echo "*"
echo \*
```
Quoting mechanisms Single quotes protect everything inside them literally. A backslash protects exactly the single character that follows it.
Assign a value to a variable

Assign a value with name=value (no spaces around =). Read the value back with $linux.
```
linux=awesome
echo See the value with: $linux
```
Use single and double quotes

Run both commands and compare their outputs.
```
echo "Double quotes allow variable expansion: $linux"
echo 'Single quotes treat everything literally: $linux'
```
Key difference Double quotes still let Bash expand variables and command substitutions. Single quotes treat everything inside them literally.
Include spaces in arguments

First observe how unquoted spaces split words into separate arguments. Then group words into directory names with single quotes and backslashes. Verify each result with ls -l, then clean up and unset the variable.
```
mkdir My Files
ls -l
mkdir 'Linux Files'
ls -l
mkdir This\ Is\ One\ Argument
ls -l
rmdir My Files 'Linux Files' 'This Is One Argument'
unset linux
```

Overview

Print a literal asterisk

Assign a value to a variable

Use single and double quotes

Include spaces in arguments