In bash you test like this for problems that can be caused by non-printable characters since if you don't know how to identify it because it basically breaks your script. echo "url=$url" should print something like this normally if you have properly formatted input/text: url=::http://someaddress.com:: But if you have some weird hidden characters (not visible in a text editor of any sort you'll get something like this ::l=::http://s........