A note on the use of quotes with the URL portion of the wget HTTP request — while not strictly required, it protects the special characters in the URL string from interacting with the shell. One downside to using quotes: if you aren’t renaming the output file, the file name will be long and verbose.
Example of the single output file name when quotes are used:
inmcm4.ncml?var=tasmin&horizStride=1&time_start=1950-01-01T12:00:00Z&time_end=1950-01-31T12:00:00Z&timeStride=1
Example of the single output file name when quotes aren’t used:
inmcm4.ncml?var=tasmin
If using –content-disposition or the -O output file rename options, using quotes will prevent shell interaction. Quotes are not needed when using wget with file lists.