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bash
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URL:
https://askubuntu.com/q/1068366
Title:
What is the difference between echo $var and echo "$var"
ID:
/2018/08/23/What-is-the-difference-between-echo-_var-and-echo-__var_
Created:
August 23, 2018
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October 19, 2025
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There is no difference between echo $var and echo "$var".
However for other commands such as ls (list files) there could be a big difference.
Try this in your terminal:
$ touch "File A"
$ var="File A"
$ ls $var
ls: cannot access 'File': No such file or directory
ls: cannot access 'A': No such file or directory
$ ls "$var"
File A
The double quotes " tells Linux to treat everything in between as a single entity. Without the double quotes everything inside is treated as separate entities delineated by spaces.
So in the first example $var is two different things “File” and “A”.
In the second example "$var" is one thing "File A".
The echo command automatically processes a single word or multiple words until the end of the line as one thing. Many other commands expect one or many things.