In zsh, how can I use brace expansion for an argument containing spaces supplied from a variable?
e.g., I want to rename a file from ~/a b/1.txt to ~/a b/2.txt.
I can do this manually from the command line using brace expansion (but without using a variable) by backslash escaping the space and by not quoting the brace expansion path, via:
mv ~/a\ b/{1,2}.txt
None of the following work:
mv '~/a b/{1,2}.txt'
mv "~/a b/{1,2}.txt"
mv $'~/a b/{1,2}.txt'
mv '~/a\ b/{1,2}.txt'
mv "~/a\ b/{1,2}.txt"
mv $'~/a\ b/{1,2}.txt'
I want to be able to do this with the value of a variable, like:
bep='~/a\ b/{1,2}.txt'
set -x
mv "${bep}"
mv ${bep}
mv $bep
set +x
But this doesn't work.
zsh reports (because of set -x) that the command that is run is:
mv '~/a\ b/{1,2}.txt'
Neither changing the quotes for, nor removing the backslash from escaping the space in, bep='~/a\ b/{1,2}.txt' changes anything.
Neither the (Q) nor the any of the (q) parameter expansion flags seem to help.
I assume that I should be trying to prevent zsh from surrounding the argument with single quotes, but I don't know how to do that concisely.
Or maybe there's some way to enable brace expansion from within single quotes.
Or…
is something along the below what you are attempting to do ?
touch a\ b/1.txt
mv a\ b/{1,2}.txt
mv a\ b/{2,1}.txt
ll -r a\ b
total 0
-rw-r--r-- 1 tick talkies 0 12 Jun 18:51 1.txt
drwxr-xr-x 3 tick talkies 96 12 Jun 18:51 ..
drwxr-xr-x 3 tick talkies 96 12 Jun 18:53 .
beb='mv a\ b/{1,2}.txt'
eval $beb
ll a\ b/2.txt
-rw-r--r-- 1 tick talkies 0 12 Jun 18:51 a b/2.txt
NB: the use of eval is generally frowned upon as possible injection of dodgy commands , if however you are in full control then its less so.
as always, test/check/double-check all code offered/shown