man > FSTAB-DECODE(8)

FSTAB-DECODE(8)                  Linux System Administrator's Manual                 FSTAB-DECODE(8)

NAME
       fstab-decode - run a command with fstab-encoded arguments


SYNOPSIS
       fstab-decode COMMAND [ARGUMENT ...]


DESCRIPTION
       fstab-decode  decodes escapes (such as newline characters and other whitespace) in the speci‐
       fied ARGUMENTs and uses them to run COMMAND.  The argument escaping uses the  same  rules  as
       path escaping in /etc/fstab, /etc/mtab and /proc/mtab.

       In  essence fstab-decode can be used anytime we want to pass multiple parameters to a command
       as a list of command line arguments. It turns output like this:

       /root
       /mnt/remote-disk
       /home

       Into one long list of parameters, "/root /mnt/remote-disk /home". This
       can be useful when trying to work with multiple filesystems at once. For
       instance, we can use it to unmount multiple NFS shares. This program also
       removes whitespace and other characters which might cause programs such
       as mount(8) or umount(8) to fail.


EXIT STATUS
       fstab-decode exits with status 127 if COMMAND can't be run.  Otherwise it exits with the sta‐
       tus returned by COMMAND.


EXAMPLES
       The following example reads fstab, finds all instances of VFAT filesystems and  prints  their
       mount  points  (argument 2 in the fstab file).  fstab-decode then runs the specified program,
       umount(8), and passes it the list of VFAT mountpoints. This unmounts all VFAT partitions.

       fstab-decode umount $(awk '$3 == "vfat" { print $2 }' /etc/fstab)


SEE ALSO
       fstab(5)

sysvinit                                      May 2006                               FSTAB-DECODE(8)