macOS Defaults, and Shell scripts

[BollywooD]

so I am trying to copy keys from one plist to another, and the following command works well from the command line:

defaults write com.sweetpproductions.SafariCookies `defaults read com.apple.Safari SCautomaticMode`

whereas the following post-install shell script does not?

#!/bin/sh


# remove unneeded defaults
#find all users
for arg in `ls /Users`
do

#copy preferences for all users, if it exists - ignoring the Shared folder
if [ $arg != 'Shared' ]; then
	/usr/bin/su $arg -c "/usr/bin/defaults write com.sweetpproductions.SafariCookie `/usr/bin/defaults read com.apple.Safari SCautomaticMode`"
	
fi
done
exit 0

I get the following error:

22/09/10 7:55:48 AM	defaults[895]	
Rep argument is not a dictionary
Defaults have not been changed.

can anyone tell me what I am doing wrong?

thanks in advance.

 

[chown33]

Just a guess...

The man page for bash says this about double-quotes:

Enclosing characters in double quotes preserves the literal value of
all characters within the quotes, with the exception of $, `, and \.
The characters $ and ` retain their special meaning within double
quotes. ...
(Underline added for emphasis.)
​

So the backtick-delimited command is being evaluated from a different context. You might want to use the -x bash option, like so:

set -x

This will tell bash to echo the command-line before executing it.

 

[BollywooD]

You might want to use the -x bash option, like so:

set -x

This will tell bash to echo the command-line before executing it.

I tried, but it didn't work, but you got me on the right path, all I had to do was to escape the single quotations like so:

/usr/bin/su $arg -c "/usr/bin/defaults write com.sweetpproductions.SafariCookie \`/usr/bin/defaults read com.apple.Safari SCautomaticMode\`"

and it works great, thanks for the help.