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When I enter the following (BASH):

rdesktop -r disk:bacon=~/bacon host

It does not expand to

rdesktop -r disk:bacon=/home/me/bacon host

It seems the "disk:" part is the problem as can be seen in:

$ echo bacon=~/bacon disk:bacon=~/bacon

bacon=/home/me/bacon disk:bacon=~/bacon

How can I make tilde expand?

Johannes Kuhn
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Yoo
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2 Answers2

16

While ~ does not expand (it's used as specially routed of the path), $HOME does. 

rdesktop -r disk:bacon=$HOME/bacon host

But be careful with environment-changing su!

P Shved
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6

rdesktop -r disk:bacon=$(echo ~/bacon) host

will do it. It won't please the eye, but it will work.

pilcrow
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  • Do you know why it doesn't work? I've been reading the manual and have found only this *"Each variable assignment is checked for unquoted tilde-prefixes immediately following a : or the first =. In these cases, tilde expansion is also performed. Consequently, one may use file names with tildes in assignments to PATH, MAILPATH, and CDPATH, and the shell assigns the expanded value."* – Vinko Vrsalovic Nov 06 '09 at 07:12
  • bash looks for tildes after ':' in the replacement string. 'disk:bacon=...' is not a valid variable assignment. – outis Nov 06 '09 at 07:18
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    In particular, 'disk:bacon=...' isn't a variable assignment both because it isn't in a valid part of the command (variable assignments must come before the command name) and ':' isn't a valid character for a variable name. – outis Nov 06 '09 at 07:32