module Shellwords - RDoc Documentation (original) (raw)

Manipulates strings like the UNIX Bourne shell¶ ↑

This module manipulates strings according to the word parsing rules of the UNIX Bourne shell.

The shellwords() function was originally a port of shellwords.pl, but modified to conform to the Shell & Utilities volume of the IEEE Std 1003.1-2008, 2016 Edition [1].

Usage¶ ↑

You can use Shellwords to parse a string into a Bourne shell friendly Array.

require 'shellwords'

argv = Shellwords.split('three blind "mice"') argv

Once you've required Shellwords, you can use the split alias String#shellsplit.

argv = "see how they run".shellsplit argv

They treat quotes as special characters, so an unmatched quote will cause an ArgumentError.

argv = "they all ran after the farmer's wife".shellsplit

Shellwords also provides methods that do the opposite. Shellwords.escape, or its alias, String#shellescape, escapes shell metacharacters in a string for use in a command line.

filename = "special's.txt"

system("cat -- #{filename.shellescape}")

Note the '–'. Without it, cat(1) will treat the following argument as a command line option if it starts with '-'. It is guaranteed that Shellwords.escape converts a string to a form that a Bourne shell will parse back to the original string, but it is the programmer's responsibility to make sure that passing an arbitrary argument to a command does no harm.

Shellwords also comes with a core extension for Array, Array#shelljoin.

dir = "Funny GIFs" argv = %W[ls -lta -- #{dir}] system(argv.shelljoin + " | less")

You can use this method to build a complete command line out of an array of arguments.

Wakou Aoyama
Akinori MUSHA knu@iDaemons.org

Contact¶ ↑

Akinori MUSHA knu@iDaemons.org (current maintainer)

Resources¶ ↑

1: IEEE Std 1003.1-2008, 2016 Edition, the Shell & Utilities volume

Public Class Methods

shellescape(str) click to toggle source

Escapes a string so that it can be safely used in a Bourne shell command line. str can be a non-string object that responds to to_s.

Note that a resulted string should be used unquoted and is not intended for use in double quotes nor in single quotes.

argv = Shellwords.escape("It's better to give than to receive") argv

String#shellescape is a shorthand for this function.

argv = "It's better to give than to receive".shellescape argv

pattern = "^[ \t]*def " open("| grep -Ern -e #{pattern.shellescape} lib") { |grep| grep.each_line { |line| file, lineno, matched_line = line.split(':', 3)

} }

It is the caller's responsibility to encode the string in the right encoding for the shell environment where this string is used.

Multibyte characters are treated as multibyte characters, not as bytes.

Returns an empty quoted String if str has a length of zero.

def shellescape(str) str = str.to_s

return "''".dup if str.empty?

str = str.dup

str.gsub!(/[^A-Za-z0-9_-.,:+/@\n]/, "\\\&")

str.gsub!(/\n/, "'\n'")

return str end

shelljoin(array) click to toggle source

Builds a command line string from an argument list, array.

All elements are joined into a single string with fields separated by a space, where each element is escaped for the Bourne shell and stringified using to_s.

ary = ["There's", "a", "time", "and", "place", "for", "everything"] argv = Shellwords.join(ary) argv

Array#shelljoin is a shortcut for this function.

ary = ["Don't", "rock", "the", "boat"] argv = ary.shelljoin argv

You can also mix non-string objects in the elements as allowed in Array#join.

output = #{['ps', '-p', <math xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML"><semantics><mrow></mrow><annotation encoding="application/x-tex"></annotation></semantics></math>].shelljoin}

def shelljoin(array) array.map { |arg| shellescape(arg) }.join(' ') end

Also aliased as: join

shellsplit(line) click to toggle source

Splits a string into an array of tokens in the same way the UNIX Bourne shell does.

argv = Shellwords.split('here are "two words"') argv

Note, however, that this is not a command line parser. Shell metacharacters except for the single and double quotes and backslash are not treated as such.

argv = Shellwords.split('ruby my_prog.rb | less') argv

String#shellsplit is a shortcut for this function.

argv = 'here are "two words"'.shellsplit argv

def shellsplit(line) words = [] field = String.new line.scan(/\G\s*(?>([^\s\'"]+)|'([^'])'|"((?:[^"\]|\.))"|(\.?)|(\S))(\s|\z)?/m) do |word, sq, dq, esc, garbage, sep| raise ArgumentError, "Unmatched quote: #{line.inspect}" if garbage

field << (word || sq || (dq && dq.gsub(/\\([$`"\\\n])/, '\\1')) || esc.gsub(/\\(.)/, '\\1'))
if sep
  words << field
  field = String.new
end

end words end

Private Instance Methods