bash - Quoting vs not quoting the variable on the RHS of a variable assignment

Question

In shell scripting, what is the difference between these two when assigning one variable to another:

a=$b

and

a="$b"

and when should I use one over the other?

Answer 1

I think there is no big difference here. Yes, it is advisable to enclose a variable in double quotes when that variable is being referenced. However, $x does not seem to be referenced here in your question.

y=$x does not by itself affect how whitespaces will be handled. It is only when $y is actually used that quoting matters. For example:

$ x=" a    b "
$ y=$x
$ echo $y
a b
$ echo "$y"
 a    b