How do I break up an extremely long string literal in bash?

Question

I would like to embed a long command like this in a bash script:

mycommand \\
    --server myserver \\
    --filename extremely/long/file/name/that/i/would/like/         


        

Answer 1

You can use a variable :

file=extremely/long/file/name
file+=/that/i/would/like/to/be/able/to/break
file+=/up/if/possible

mycommand\
    --server myserver\
    --filename $file\
    --flag flag