Going to directory using bash variables doesn't work when directory names have spaces

Posted by gsingh2011 on Super User See other posts from Super User or by gsingh2011
Published on 2011-11-19T20:44:17Z Indexed on 2012/06/28 9:18 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 442

Filed under:

linux

|

bash

|

cygwin

Let's say I want to store the following command in a variable

cd "/cygdrive/c/Program Files/"

So I do this

dir="cd \"/cygdrive/c/Program Files/\""

That should store the command to navigate to the Program Files directory, so when I type $dir it takes me to that directory. To check that the quotations have been properly escaped, I type

echo $dir

which gives me

cd "/cygdrive/c/Program Files/"

So everything should be working fine. However, when I type,

$dir

I get

bash: cd: "/cygdrive/c/Program: No such file or directory

What am I doing wrong? I'm using Cygwin, but I assume this problem applies to bash in general.

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