Specifying parameter values in the AWS CLI

Many parameters used in the AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI) are simple string or numeric values, such as the key-pair name my-key-pair in the following aws ec2 create-key-pair command example.

$ aws ec2 create-key-pair --key-name my-key-pair

Formatting for command can vary between terminals. For example, most terminals are case sensitive but Powershell is case insensitive. This means the two following command examples would yield different results for case sensitive terminals as they view MyFile*.txt and myfile*.txt as different parameters.

However, PowerShell would process these requests as the same as it sees MyFile*.txt and myfile*.txt as the same parameters. The following command example demonstrates these paramaters using the aws s3 cp command:

$ aws s3 cp . s3://amzn-s3-demo-bucket/path --include "MyFile*.txt"
$ aws s3 cp . s3://amzn-s3-demo-bucket/path --include "myfile*.txt"

For more information on PowerShell's case insensitivy, see about_Case-Sensitivity in the PowerShell documentation.

Sometimes you need to use quotation marks or literals around strings that include special or space characters. The rules around this formatting can also vary between terminals. For more information about using quotation marks around complex parameters, see Using quotation marks and literals with strings in the AWS CLI.

These topics cover the most common terminal formatting rules. If you are having issues with your terminal recognizing your parameter values, be sure to review the topics in this section and also to check your terminal's documentation for their specific syntax rules.