Bash function argument returns error "command not found"

Question

I have this function in a bash script, to create a new jekyll post; but it returns the argument as command not found. Here's the script:

 function new_post () {
     if [ -z "$1" ]
     then
         read -p "Post Title:"  TITLE
     else
         TITLE= "$1"
     fi
     FILE=$( echo $TITLE | tr A-Z a-z | tr ' ' _ )
     echo -e '---\nlayout: post\ntitle: '$TITLE'\npublished: false\n---\n' > $(date '+%Y-%m-%d-')"$FILE"'.md'
 }

But whenever I try to run it it returns:

$>new_post "Hello World"
-bash: Hello World: command not found

It appears to be trying to run the argument as a command.

I even tried this and got the same result

$>TITLE= "Hello World" && echo -e ---layout: post\ntitle: "$TITLE"\n--- 
-bash: Hello World: command not found

Can anybody tell me what I'm doing wrong?

Answer 1

It may be the space in TITLE= "$1" that causes the error. Try with TITLE="$1"