set value using string with spaces

[kaikin]

I've just discovered exiftool and think it is a great resource!

I'm just having trouble using exiftool in a shell script using a string variable which contains spaces and can't find the right combination of quotes to make this work:

theCaption="my caption"
exiftool -description=$theCaption IMG_1506.jpg


which gives the following error:

Code Select Expand

Error: File not found - caption
    1 image files updated
    1 files weren't updated due to errors


I can successfully do
exiftool -description="my caption" IMG_1506.jpg

and have tried embedding single or double quotes within the string variable, or using $'theCaption' in the first example, but always get the same error. Does someone have an example of how to do this?

I'm running this on Mac OS Sierra
Many thanks.

[Phil Harvey]

This should do it:

exiftool -description="$theCaption" IMG_1506.jpg

Shell variables are interpolated inside double quotes.  But not single quotes, which is why '$thecaption' won't work.

- Phil