I have a variable in my bash script whose value is something like this:
~/a/b/c
Note that it is unexpanded tilde. When I do ls -lt on this variable (call it $VAR), I get no such directory. I want to let bash interpret/expand this variable without executing it. In other words, I want bash to run eval but not run the evaluated command. Is this possible in bash?
How did I manage to pass this into my script without expansion? I passed the argument in surrounding it with double quotes.
Try this command to see what I mean:
ls -lt "~"
This is exactly the situation I am in. I want the tilde to be expanded. In other words, what should I replace magic with to make these two commands identical:
ls -lt ~/abc/def/ghi
and
ls -lt $(magic "~/abc/def/ghi")
Note that ~/abc/def/ghi may or may not exist.