Pass wildcard to scp in a wrapper bash script - bash

Question

I am writing a bash wrapper for scp'ing into and from a certain host with a certain username, like:
johny#bonjour:~/bin$ cat scpphcl
#!/bin/bash
download=false
upload=false
local=""
remote=""
usage()
{
echo "Usage: $0 -d[-u] -l <LocalPath> -r <RemotePath>"
exit 1
}
while getopts "h?dul:r:" opt; do
case "$opt" in
h|\?)
usage
;;
d)
download=true
upload=false
;;
u)
download=false
upload=true
;;
l)
local=$OPTARG
;;
r)
remote=$OPTARG
;;
esac
done
if [[ -z $local || -z $remote ]]; then
echo "Need to provide local and remote path."
usage
fi
if $download; then
scp somebody#somehost:"$remote" $local
elif $upload; then
scp $local somebody#somehost:"$remote"
else
echo "Neither download nor upload?"
exit 1
fi
if [[ $? -ne 0 ]]; then
echo "Something wrong happened in the scp process."
exit 1
fi
exit 0
It works well with the usual filenames, but if there is any wildcard in the local filename field, it will not work right.
johny#bonjour:~/test$ scpphcl -u -l * -r /u/somebody/temp
Need to provide local and remote path.
Usage: /Users/johny/bin/scpphcl -d[-u] -l <LocalPath> -r <RemotePath>
There is a walkaround, using sinqle quotes around the local file argument if there is a wildcard in it:
johny#bonjour:~/test$ scpphcl -u -l '*' -r /u/somebody/temp
But even this walkaround will not work, if the command is issued outside the folder test:
johny#bonjour:~/test$ cd ..
johny#bonjour:~$ scpphcl -u -l 'test/*' -r /u/somebody/temp
This doesn't work and will hang in the scp process.
Any help in how to pass the wildcard in local filenames with the bash wrapper?

Answer 1

It's probably best not to require your users to quote wildcard patterns. I'd instead change the interface of your program to accept any number of local paths, after the option arguments:
echo "Usage: $0 [-d|-u] [-r <RemotePath>] <LocalPath>..."
When reading options, consume them with shift:
while getopts "h?dur:" opt; do
case "$opt" in
h|\?)
usage
exit 0
;;
d)
download=true
upload=false
;;
u)
download=false
upload=true
;;
r)
remote="$OPTARG"
;;
*)
usage >&2
exit 1
;;
esac
done
shift $((OPTIND-1))
Now the remaining positional arguments are the local filenames (and can be accessed with "$#" - note the all-important double-quotes there):
if test -z "$*" # no LocalPath arguments!
then usage >&2; exit 1
elif $download
then exec scp somebody#somehost:"$remote" "$#"
elif $upload
then exec scp "$#" somebody#somehost:"$remote"
fi