Re: question about passing complex strings in Parallel

[Ole Tange]

On Sat, Jun 15, 2024 at 11:32 PM Saint Michael <venefax@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> This is related to parallel, but we can replicate the issue in plain bash.
> in this code:
> data="'1,2,3,4','5,6,7,8'"
>
> # Define the processing function
> process() {
> echo "There are $# arguments."
>     echo "They are: $@"
>     local job="$1"
>     shift
>     local a="$1"
>     shift
>     local b="$1"
>     shift
>     local remaining="$*"
>     echo "Arg1: '$a', Arg2: '$b'"
> }
> process "$data"
>
> how can I get my (a) and (b) arguments right?
> The length of both strings is unpredictable.
> a="1,2,3,4" and b="5,6,7,8""

If we can make a slight change (" <=> ') your input is a quoted CSV-file:

    $ export -f process
    $ data='"1,2,3,4","5,6,7,8"'
    $ echo "$data" | parallel --csv process dummy {}
    There are 3 arguments.
    They are: dummy 1,2,3,4 5,6,7,8
    Arg1: '1,2,3,4', Arg2: '5,6,7,8'

/Ole