Command substitution: cat with executable content

Question

I have a file called test and the contents are:

ubuntu@regina:~$ cat test ** test ** 

catting this file via command line works fine, but if I use command substitution I get an understandable but undesirable result.

ubuntu@regina:~$ A=$(cat test) ubuntu@regina:~$ echo $A deployment detect.sh htpasswd.py logs test uwsgi-1.0.4 uwsgi-1.0.4.tar.gz test deployment detect.sh htpasswd.py logs test uwsgi-1.0.4 uwsgi-1.0.4.tar.gz 

Because of the asterisks that exist in the file test it basically executes an echo * and lists the directory contents along with the file contents.

Is there a parameter I can pass to the command substitution syntax that will not provide this result, or is there another idiom that should be used for this?

Answer 1

You want to do echo "$A". Wrapping the variable in the quotes makes it a string.

Example:

[root@talara test]# A=$(<test) [root@talara test]# echo $A FILE1 ham test test FILE1 ham test [root@talara test]# echo "$A" ** test **