On Thursday 17 Sep 2009, steve wrote:
[snip] Ummm, the literal space (" ") character doesn't work ? ...before command3 (as in ") command3" or after command2 (as in "command2 ") ?
Not clear on what the OP wants, so no comment here.
btw, what is a 'here' document ?
A here document is a shell construct by which you can simulate redirection from a file on the command-line. For instance, if you wanted to copy the following text to a floppy:
This is the house that Jack built. This is the malt that lay in the house that Jack built.
you can put it into a file, say /tmp/file.txt, then:
cat < /tmp/file.txt > /dev/fd0
If you want to avoid the intermediate step of creating file.txt, you can use a here document with the content you want:
cat > /dev/fd0 <<some_string This is the house that Jack built. This is the malt that lay in the house that Jack built. some_string
The effect is as if you had put the text between some_string...some_string in a file and redirected stdin from that file, except that no actual file is created. Convenient for quick-and-dirty texts, specially stuff you copy-paste from some application.
Regards,
-- Raju