Having problem escaping quotes

I have a client server application that is passing information to an external database (not one of ours).

The script getting called looks like:

#! /usr/bin/ksh

# declare positional parameters

last=$1
first=$2
vnet=$3
phone=$4
priority=$5
problem_type=$6
short_description=$7
status=$8
remedy_id=$9
resolve_date=${10}
problem_details=${11}
tivoli_id=${12}
error_flag=0
current_date=${13}

{

echo "last = $last"
echo "first = $first"
echo "vnet = $vnet"
echo "phone = $phone"
echo "priority = $priority"
echo "problem_type = $problem_type"
echo "short_description = $short_description"
echo "status = $status"
echo "remedy_id = $remedy_id"
echo "resolve_date = $resolve_date"
echo "problem_details = $problem_details"
echo "tivoli_id = $tivoli_id"
echo "current_date = $current_date"

# log on to Oracle with a block of code echo "sending ticket $remedy_id to Tivoli. Results =" /path/sqlplus user/password_at_HOST << EOF

insert into REMEDY_TRANSACTION
(LAST_NAME,FIRST_NAME,VNET,PHONE_NUMBER,PRIORITY,PROBLEM_TYPE,SHORT_DESCRIPTION,STATUS,REMEDY_ID,RESOLVED_DATE,PROBLEM_DETAILS,TIVOLI_ID,ERROR_FLAG,MODIFY_DATETIME) VALUES
('$last','$first','$vnet','$phone','$priority','$problem_type','$short_description','$status','$remedy_id','$resolve_date','$problem_details','$tivoli_id','$error_flag','$current_date'); list;
commit;
disc
exit
EOF
} >> /tmp/tivoli.log
 

the app is calling the external program with sample data like:

/path/remedy_tivoli "last" "first" "vnet" "phone,num" "priority" "problem type" "short description" "status" "keyid" "resolve date" "the word "double" is enclosed in double quotes and 'single' is enclosed in single
 quotes and this line wraps.
this line is on a new line.
" "tv04" "1"

or

/path/remedy_tivoli "last" "first" "vnet" "phone,num" "priority" "problem type" "short description" "status" "keyid" "resolve date" "Thursday, October 07, 1999 12:35:59PM emetzger Thursday, October 07, 1999 02:35:53AM emetzger Receiving "recieve reply" errors when trying to use RMS. Reference previous PMR, blah, blah, blah...."this part is in double quotes" and 'this part is in single quotes'... oh, I don't know" "destid" "1"

What is killing me is the problem details field ($11). If it contains a quote (single, double, matched or unmatched), it reaches beyond what I am scripted to handle.

Can anyone suggest a way to trap and escape those extra (or nested) quotes for that field? Since it is having the issue with them even as it is parsing the command line, I am not able to trap for it as I would like (so far :-) )

I appreciate any knowledge you can share. Received on Tue Oct 12 1999 - 07:17:52 CDT