Using sudo with for loop

Question

I want to run a simple for loop command with sudo, but it isn't working: ``` sudo -i -u user for i in /dir; do echo $i; done ``` I get the following error: ``` -bash: syntax error near unexpected token `do' ``` Probably a very simple thing I am overlooking. Any help?

Accepted Answer

sudo wants a program (+arguments) as a parameter, not a piece of shell script. You can do this, though:

```
sudo -i -u user sh -c 'for i in /dir; do echo $i; done'
```

Note the single quotes. If you used double quotes, your shell would try to expand the `$i` before sudo (or, rather, the shell run by it) ever sees it.

PS. a separate problem, as pointed out in a comment (only six years later), is that if you want to iterate over the files in a directory, the proper syntax is `for i in /dir/*`. `for` accepts a list, and `/dir` is a list... with one item. `/dir/*` expands to a list of files in `/dir` due to wildcard expansion.

Using sudo with for loop

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