Very simple - how to put 'space' in unix

Question

hi,
i have been told to do the following command to make all files in a directory read write:
/bin/chmod -R a+rw /Users/....
now, the folder i want to apply this to is called "The Strategics Group"
when i have the space, in Terminal i get an error, so i assume it doesn't understand the spaces between the names. is there a special character one uses?
thanks
Prem

Answer 1

A couple of ways to do what you want. You could enclose the whole pathname or just the spaces in quotes or double-quotes, i.e.
"/Users/user/path name with spaces"
/Users/user/'path name with spaces'
/Users/user/path' 'name' 'with' 'spaces
or escape the spaces with backslashes, i.e.
/Users/user/path\ name\ with\ spaces
but the simplest way from an interactive shell is to use filename completion with the TAB key: just type "/U" <TAB> "/us" TAB and so on, typing extra characters whenever you get a beep.
Note that the -R switch to the chmod command descends into the whole directory tree if that's what "pathname" is, a directory.