How to input a path with a white space?

Question

I have a main file which uses(from the main I do a source) a properties file with variables pointing to paths.

The properties file looks like this:

TMP_PATH=/$COMPANY/someProject/tmp OUTPUT_PATH=/$COMPANY/someProject/output SOME_PATH=/$COMPANY/someProject/some path 

The problem is SOME_PATH, I must use a path with spaces (I can't change it).

I tried escaping the whitespace, with quotes, but no solution so far.

I edited the paths, the problem with single quotes is I'm using another variable $COMPANY in the path

Answer 1

Use one of these threee variants:

SOME_PATH="/mnt/someProject/some path" SOME_PATH='/mnt/someProject/some path' SOME_PATH=/mnt/someProject/some\ path 

Answer 2

I see Federico you've found solution by yourself. The problem was in two places. Assignations need proper quoting, in your case

SOME_PATH="/$COMPANY/someProject/some path" 

is one of possible solutions.

But in shell those quotes are not stored in a memory, so when you want to use this variable, you need to quote it again, for example:

NEW_VAR="$SOME_PATH" 

because if not, space will be expanded to command level, like this:

NEW_VAR=/YourCompany/someProject/some path 

which is not what you want.

_{For more info you can check out my article about it http://www.cofoh.com/white-shell}