this post was submitted on 03 May 2024
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It has nothing to do with bash specifically - other shells like sh, csh, tcsh, zsh, etc. are the same. Whitespace in UNIX is just that way by design. And it's been a long while since I used a Windows CLI but they were that way too - plus added all that weirdness about ~1 at the ends of filenames, and Mac OSX also. So not even just UNIX, but it's how the CLIs tend to work, where whitespace acts as the "delimiter" between arguments sent to a program.
program_name arg1 arg2 arg3 arg4
So if you use whitespace like "cp file 1 file 2", the CLI sends arg1="file", arg2="1", arg3="file", arg4="2", rather than arg1="file 1" and arg2="file 2". These are just the foundational rules of how CLIs work - a computer can't read your mind, and this is how you precisely tell it what you want, within this highly rigid framework to avoid misunderstandings.
The alternative is to use a GUI, so like see file, drag file, and ofc that has its own set of tradeoffs good and bad.
Zsh has some important differences in how it handles whitespace and quoting, which affects OP's exact example.
Consider this:
In zsh, this works. In bash, it will give you six errors saying d, e, f, g, h, and i do not exist.
fxd
That will work in either zsh or bash, yes. It's a good habit to use quotes, but I am pointing out that quoting and expansion behavior is not the same across all shells.
It's the same across all POSIX compliant shells.
zshis not POSIX compliant.