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Re: Using terminal commands - corner cases

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>From most, shells, e.g. bash, dash, most or all POSIX shells, you can type:
type name_of_command
And it'll generally tell you what/where that command comes from, or if
it's an alias, etc.
E.g. from either bash or dash:
$ type cd
cd is a shell builtin
$
So then you could look it up in the relevant man page.
In this case, either bash or dash.
But your issue isn't with cd, but characters special to the shell,
and how the shell parses commands, and (your lack of) quoting.
So, read the bash (or dash) man page about that.
If you want to start somewhat simpler, rather than read the quite length
bash man page, start with something relevant that it's mostly backwards
compatible with, e.g. dash (1224 lines of text, vs. 6021 for bash),
or POSIX shell:
https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/V3_chap02.html
Or even start with ye olde Borne shell from 1979 (a mere 6 pages):
https://www.mpaoli.net/~michael/unix/sh/

So ... not a corner case, but how Bourne and relatively compatible shells
have generally been parsing commands for well over four decades now.

On Wed, Nov 27, 2024 at 3:38 AM Richard Owlett <rowlett@access.net> wrote:
> I've used terminal commands for so many decades I don't know where to
> look up fine details of a specific commands.
> I just tried to use the cd command with a target directory having spaces
> in it's name. Of course the system responded
>           > bash: cd: too many arguments
> Problem solved. But is there somewhere to go directly without a web search?

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Using terminal commands - corner cases Richard Owlett <rowlett@access.net> - 2024-11-27 12:40 +0100
  Re: Using terminal commands - corner cases <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2024-11-27 13:00 +0100
    Re: Using terminal commands - corner cases Richard Owlett <rowlett@access.net> - 2024-11-27 14:40 +0100
      Re: Using terminal commands - corner cases <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2024-11-27 14:40 +0100
        Re: Using terminal commands - corner cases Richard Owlett <rowlett@access.net> - 2024-11-27 15:50 +0100
        Re: Using terminal commands - corner cases Joe <joe@jretrading.com> - 2024-11-27 15:50 +0100
      Re: Using terminal commands - corner cases Eric S Fraga <e.fraga@ucl.ac.uk> - 2024-11-27 15:20 +0100
        Re: Using terminal commands - corner cases <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2024-11-27 15:30 +0100
          help, man, etc. (was Re: Using terminal commands - corner cases) The Wanderer <wanderer@fastmail.fm> - 2024-11-27 16:50 +0100
            Re: help, man, etc. (was Re: Using terminal commands - corner cases) Greg Wooledge <greg@wooledge.org> - 2024-11-27 17:10 +0100
              Re: help, man, etc. (was Re: Using terminal commands - corner cases) <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2024-11-27 18:10 +0100
            Re: help, man, etc. (was Re: Using terminal commands - corner cases) <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2024-11-27 18:00 +0100
              Re: help, man, etc. (was Re: Using terminal commands - corner cases) The Wanderer <wanderer@fastmail.fm> - 2024-11-27 18:30 +0100
                Re: help, man, etc. (was Re: Using terminal commands - corner cases) <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2024-11-27 18:50 +0100
              Re: help, man, etc. (was: Re: Using terminal commands - corner cases) Max Nikulin <manikulin@gmail.com> - 2024-11-28 03:40 +0100
                Re: help, man, etc. (was: Re: Using terminal commands - corner cases) <tomas@tuxteam.de> - 2024-11-28 06:40 +0100
        Re: Using terminal commands - corner cases Yassine Chaouche <a.chaouche@algerian-radio.dz> - 2024-11-27 16:40 +0100
        Re: Using terminal commands - corner cases Chris Green <cl@isbd.net> - 2024-11-27 17:20 +0100
    Re: Using terminal commands - corner cases Greg Wooledge <greg@wooledge.org> - 2024-11-27 15:50 +0100
  Re: Using terminal commands - corner cases David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2024-11-28 05:20 +0100
    Re: Using terminal commands - corner cases Richard Owlett <rowlett@access.net> - 2024-11-28 09:40 +0100
    Re: Using terminal commands - corner cases Max Nikulin <manikulin@gmail.com> - 2024-11-28 16:00 +0100
      Re: Using terminal commands - corner cases Richard Owlett <rowlett@access.net> - 2024-11-28 16:20 +0100
        Re: Using terminal commands - corner cases Erwan David <erwan@rail.eu.org> - 2024-11-28 16:20 +0100
      Re: Using terminal commands - corner cases David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2024-11-29 19:40 +0100
        Re: Using terminal commands - corner cases Max Nikulin <manikulin@gmail.com> - 2024-11-30 16:20 +0100
          Re: Using terminal commands - corner cases David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2024-12-02 04:00 +0100
            Re: Using terminal commands - corner cases debian-user@howorth.org.uk - 2024-12-02 13:00 +0100
  Re: Using terminal commands - corner cases Michael Paoli <michael.paoli@berkeley.edu> - 2024-12-02 10:20 +0100

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