What is the difference between "$*" and "$@" in a bash shell script?

[indigowinged]

Also see: What is the difference between $* and $@ in bash shell script?

Adding double quotes to all positional parameter predefined variable, you see different results.

echo "$*"
echo "$@"
echo ""
for i in "$*"
do
  echo $i
done

for i in "$@"
do
  echo $i
done

The results are, the two echo's display the same thing. However when you pass it through a for loop, the two behave differently. $* displays the entire sentence as one string and $@ displays each word in the sentence individually.

$ ./positional_parameters If you see a faded sign at the side of the road that says...
If you see a faded sign at the side of the road that says...
If you see a faded sign at the side of the road that says...

If you see a faded sign at the side of the road that says...
If
you
see
a
faded
sign
at
the
side
of
the
road
that
says...