Expansion and Data

Quoting

Words vs One Value

Quoting controls how Bash splits text into command arguments. The same variable can become two words or one value.

Program

Play the script to see unquoted text split on a space, then quoted text stay together.

quoting.sh 
#!/usr/bin/env bash

item="daily report"
printf '<%s>\n' $item
printf '<%s>\n' "$item"
word splitting After unquoted expansion, Bash splits text into words using whitespace.
double quotes Double quotes preserve spaces while still allowing variable expansion.