Cannot cat file which has space in name in linux

linux bash cat

64,533

Solution 1

Does putting quotation marks around the name not work?

cat "file name with space"

A third option would be

cat 'file name with space'

where the file name may contain everything but the '.

If it does, such as file n'ame, replace every ' with '\'':

cat 'file n'\''ame'

Use the escape character '\' like this

cat file\ name\ with\ space

Enclosing the file in double quotes should work i.e.

cat "file name with space"

64,533

Updated on September 18, 2022

Maulzey over 1 year

I believe there's a simple fix but cannot debug it out.

I have file called "file name with space" How do I cat this file from Linux bash ?
- Admin almost 11 years
  
  cat "file name with space" or cat file\ name\ with\ space
- shellter almost 11 years
  
  cat "file with space" doesn't work!? Good luck.
- H2CO3 almost 11 years
  
  Sure: name your file file_name_with_underscore...
- glglgl almost 11 years
  
  @H2CO3 Why if it works if everythin is implemented well?
- H2CO3 almost 11 years
  
  @glglgl Safe, convenient, cross-platform and idiomatic.
- ganesh almost 11 years
  
  A fourth option would be to change the IFS.
Scott - Слава Україні over 7 years

This is WRONG. Three (slightly) different perfectly good (correct) answers have already been given; if you have a problem with them, try again (and make sure you do what they say). But your answer will not work!!
user890332 about 5 years

This IS a good answer. When you have filenames in a file and want to cp them in a for loop, you use the backquote and cat the files.(e.g. for i in cat bakuplocations; do cp -u "$i" .; done) Then, if the filenames have spaces it will not work any of the other suggestions except this one.