Variables as commands in Bash scripts

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Simply don’t put whole commands in variables. You’ll get into a lot of trouble trying to recover quoted arguments.

Also:

  1. Avoid using all-capitals variable names in scripts. It is an easy way to shoot yourself in the foot.
  2. Don’t use backquotes. Use $(…) instead; it nests better.
#! /bin/bash

if [ $# -ne 2 ]
then
    echo "Usage: $(basename $0) DIRECTORY BACKUP_DIRECTORY"
    exit 1
fi

directory=$1
backup_directory=$2
current_date=$(date +%Y-%m-%dT%H-%M-%S)
backup_file="${backup_directory}/${current_date}.backup"

tar cv "$directory" | openssl des3 -salt | split -b 1024m - "$backup_file"

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