Docker exec quoting variables

Question

I'd like to know if there's a way to do this

Let's say the dockerfile contains this line, that specifies path of an executable

ENV CLI /usr/local/bin/myprogram

I'd like to be able to call this program using ENV variable name through exec command.

For example docker exec -it <my container> 'echo something-${CLI} Expecting something-/usr/local/bin/myprogram

However that returns:

OCI runtime exec failed: exec failed: container_linux.go:348: starting container process caused "exec: \"${CLI} do something\": executable file not found in $PATH": unknown

Answer 1

Ok, I found a way to do it, all you need to do is evaluate command with bash

docker exec -it <container id> bash -c 'echo something-${CLI}'

returns something-/usr/local/bin/myprogram

If the CLI environment variable is not already set in the container, you can also pass it in such as:

docker exec -it -e CLI=/usr/local/bin/myprogram <container id> bash -c 'echo something-${CLI}'

See the help file:

 docker exec --help

 Usage: docker exec [OPTIONS] CONTAINER COMMAND [ARG...]

 Run a command in a running container

Options:
-d, --detach               Detached mode: run command in the background
-e, --env list             Set environment variables
....