Quoting vs not quoting the variable on the RHS of a variable assignment

Question

In shell scripting, what is the difference between these two when assigning one variable to another:

a=$b

and

a=\"$b\"
         


        

Answer 1

Here are some other examples: ( having two files in the current directory t.sh and file)

a='$(ls)'        # no command substitution
b="$(ls)"        # command substitution, no word splitting
c='*'            # no filename expansion
d="*"            # no filename expansion
e=*              # no filename expansion
f=$a             # no expansions or splittings
g="$a"           # no expansions or splittings
h=$d             # no expansions or splittings

echo ---'$a'---
echo $a          # no command substitution
echo ---'$b'---
echo $b          # word splitting
echo ---'"$b"'---
echo "$b"        # no word splitting
echo ---'$c'---
echo $c          # filename expansion, word splitting
echo ---'"$c"'---
echo "$c"        # no filename expansion, no word splitting
echo ---'$d'---
echo $d          # filename expansion, word splitting
echo ---'"$d"'---
echo "$d"        # no filename expansion, no word splitting
echo ---'"$e"'---
echo "$e"        # no filename expansion, no word splitting 
echo ---'$e'---
echo $e          # filename expansion, word splitting
echo ---'"$f"'---
echo "$f"        # no filename expansion, no word splitting 
echo ---'"$g"'---
echo "$g"        # no filename expansion, no word splitting
echo ---'$h'---
echo $h          # filename expansion, word splitting
echo ---'"$h"'---
echo "$h"        # no filename expansion, no word splitting

Output:

---$a---
$(ls)
---$b---
file t.sh
---"$b"---
file
t.sh
---$c---
file t.sh
---"$c"---
*
---$d---
file t.sh
---"$d"---
*
---"$e"---
*
---$e---
file t.sh
---"$f"---
$(ls)
---"$g"---
$(ls)
---$h---
file t.sh
---"$h"---
*

One interesting thing to notice is that command substitution occurs in variable assignments if they are in double quotes, and if the RHS is given explicitly as "$(ls)" and not implicitly as "$a"..