When using wsl (windows subsystem for linux) I often want to change directory to a windows directory. wslpath takes a windows directory like C:\Windows and converts it to the wsl version /mnt/c/Windows. With a bit of quoting a construct like this works well (although I suspect there are edge cases):

cd "`wslpath 'C:\Windows'`"

What I want to do is convert this into a bash function that I can put into my .bashrc file to make it a bit easier to type. I want to be able to type something like:

wcd 'C:\Windows'

The problem is quoting all these quotes so I get what I want. This option fails:

wcd ()
{
  cd "`wslpath '$1'`"
}

That one was never going to work but I was more hopeful about:

wcd ()
{
  cd \"\`wslpath \'$1\'\`\"
}

That's about my limit with shell quoting but I'm sure it should be possible to get this to work properly.

CodePudding user response：

The single quotes prevent variable expansion, so '$1' produces the literal string $1.

The command substitution is a command boundary, so you can say

wcd () { cd "`wslpath "$1"`"; }

without bumping into what admittedly can look like the second quote closing the string started by the first opening quote, instead of nesting, which you otherwise generally cannot do.

... Though the vastly preferred modern command substitution syntax should definitely be used in any new code instead;

wcd () { cd "$(wslpath "$1")"; }

Kudos for taking care to quote your arguments properly!