010-160 Question #84: Real Exam Question with Answer & Explanation

The correct answer is A: cat 'Texts 2.txt'. When a filename contains spaces, the shell requires quoting or escaping so it is treated as a single argument rather than multiple arguments.

The Power of the Command Line

Question

Which of the following commands output the content of the file Texts 2.txt? (Choose two.)

Options

Acat 'Texts 2.txt'
Bcat -- Texts 2.txt
Ccat [Texts 2.txt]
Dcat 'Texts| 2.txt'
Ecat Texts\ 2.txt

Explanation

When a filename contains spaces, the shell requires quoting or escaping so it is treated as a single argument rather than multiple arguments.

Common mistakes.

B. The double-dash -- signals the end of options but does not quote or join arguments, so cat receives two separate arguments - 'Texts' and '2.txt' - and will report errors for both.
C. Square brackets in the shell are glob/pattern matching metacharacters, not a quoting mechanism, so [Texts 2.txt] would be interpreted as a character class pattern, not the literal filename.
D. Single-quoting preserves every character literally, so 'Texts| 2.txt' would look for a file whose name contains a pipe character, which does not match the actual filename 'Texts 2.txt'.

Concept tested. Shell quoting and escaping spaces in filenames

Reference. https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/bash.html#Quoting

Topics

#cat command#filename quoting#escape characters#special characters

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