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Consider:

$ getfacl somefile.dat     # The output is formatted and contains several new lines..

# file: somefile.dat
# owner: user1
# group: group1
user::rw-
group::r--              #effective:r--
mask:r--
other:r--
$
$ ACL_PERMISSIONS=$(getfacl somefile.dat);
$ echo $ACL_PERMISSIONS;
# file: somefile.dat # owner: user1 # group: group1 user::rw- group::r-- #effective:r-- mask:r-- other:r--

So how do I preserve these new lines during variable assignment, so that when I echo $ACL_PERMISSIONS I get the same output as $ getfacl somefile.dat ..?

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  • Kindly explain the reason for the -1..? Commented Apr 17, 2013 at 8:42
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    I'm not the downvoter, but my guess would be that it is because this is an issue merely involving missing quotes (which I don't think warrants a downvote, but I've seen it happen before on questions like this). Commented Apr 17, 2013 at 8:44

1 Answer 1

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4

You need to quote your expansion, otherwise it will undergo word splitting, which is what you are experiencing.

acl=$(getfacl somefile.dat)
echo "$acl"

Bear in mind that $( strips trailing newlines anyway (it is considered a feature). If that is a problem for you, you need to do something like this to preserve them (in bash4+):

mapfile acl < <(getfacl somefile.dat)
printf %s "${acl[@]}"
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  • Hey @Chris, Thanks! I wasn't aware of 'word splitting' and using quotes around the variable does solve my problem.. Just curious, how can I preserve trailing newlines (not sure where such a thing might help) using ksh..? Commented Apr 17, 2013 at 8:49
  • @KentPawar The first method should also work in ksh. Commented Apr 17, 2013 at 8:55
  • Yup, it does.. Sorry, but didn't quite get your 2nd example.. whats mapfile doing..? Commented Apr 17, 2013 at 8:58
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    @KentPawar From help mapfile: "[r]ead lines from the standard input into an indexed array variable". It essentially reads each line from the output of getfacl somefile.dat into an array called acl. Commented Apr 17, 2013 at 9:00
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    @Kent - sorry for confusion. "strips newlines" is not a command it is just text. I think in your case you just need to enclose the variable in quotes as Chris suggested. Commented Apr 17, 2013 at 10:08

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