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I am having an issue here trying to create a bash script for rclone

This give me an error: 

20d: command not found



DAYS='20d'
PURGE='purge --min-age' ${DAYS}
rclone ${PURGE} ${DEST}/old/ $VERBOSE $LOGS

This works

PURGE='purge --min-age 20d'
rclone ${PURGE} ${DEST}/old/ $VERBOSE $LOGS

Can someone help me out here so I can use the first one? It makes it so much easier for others to use this script if all they have to do is change DAYS

jesse_b
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prophetse7en
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    You're not really telling what you're trying to do, but if those are meant to be arguments to `rclone`, then see [How can we run a command stored in a variable?](https://unix.stackexchange.com/q/444946/170373), and [the relevant parts of the answer here](https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/131767/170373) – ilkkachu Jul 24 '19 at 19:59

1 Answers1

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Your quoting for the PURGE variable is causing this.

Currently you are setting:

PURGE='purge --min-age'

And then executing ${DAYS} (20d) with the PURGE variable in its environment.

You probably want:

purge=(purge --min-age "$days")

(Arrays are a much safer way to hold command line arguments than unquoted variables)

You would call it like:

rclone "${purge[@]}" "${dest}/old" "$verbose" "$logs"

Note: You should only use uppercase variable names for environment variables.

Take the following example:

$ FOO=bar env | grep FOO
FOO=bar
$ env | grep FOO
$

We are setting the FOO variable to bar and then executing the env command with this variable in its environment.

You are getting an error because 20d isn't a valid command.

jesse_b
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    It's even more likely that they want `purge=( purge --min-age "$days" ); rclone "${purge[@]}" "$dest" ...` as to not have to _rely_ on the field splitting of the shell to split the arguments in `$purge` correctly. – Kusalananda Jul 24 '19 at 19:25
  • ok, so if I use the format you recommend "${purge[@]}" how will that work with adding the rest of the info I want to the purge command? How does it get the 'purge --min-age 20d' part into the command? – prophetse7en Jul 24 '19 at 19:49
  • It gets that part from `${purge[@]}`. Your request for clarification isn't clear – jesse_b Jul 24 '19 at 19:52
  • ok. The way I do it now based on the help I got `days='20d'` `purge=(purge --min-age "$days")` Then I use `rclone $purge` to rclone command and it give me this output `purge --min-age 20d` If I use `${purge[@]}` will everything after = in `purge=(purge --min-age "$days")` be added were the @ is? So if I want to do the same in this example it will be like this? `ignorefile=".rclone-ignore" exifpresent=('--exclude-if-present' ${ignorefile}) rcolne sync / "${dest}/recent" --backup-dir "${dest}/old/${date}" "${exitifpresent[@]}"` – prophetse7en Jul 24 '19 at 20:25