On 6/19/25 7:16 PM, Jeff Ketchum wrote:
I think that helps me understand the differences better, and what I am seeing.Though It doesn't seem like it is completely consistent, and not what I expected when using a variable with specific layout. (and also breaking change enabled by default) example, if i change the replacement to '\a' it stays as \a $ bash replacestring.sh original: 1|2|3|4 replace:\a unqouted 1|\a|3|4 qouted 1|\a|3|4 so, it seems it only escapes it if its a double backslash, or escaping a & and it is different again, if i change the script to do \a manually $ cat replacestring.sh original_string="1|2|3|4" replace_string='\a' echo "original: ${original_string} replace:${replace_string}" echo "unqouted ${original_string/2/${replace_string}}" echo "qouted ${original_string/2/"${replace_string}"}" echo "manual ${original_string/2/\a}" output for newer bash: ... manual 1|a|3|4
This is the change between bash-4.2 and bash-4.3 that added quote removal.
this is slightly different behaviour from the variable, but in older versions, it shows it GNU bash, version 4.2.46(2)-release (x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu) $ bash /tmp/replacestring.sh original: 1|2|3|4 replace:\a unqouted 1|\a|3|4 qouted 1|"\a"|3|4 manual 1|\a|3|4 It could also be a double quote, '\"' that is escaped, and it doesn't interpret the \ as an escape, which is a character that I would expect to see that happen for.
Quote removal doesn't happen on the results of variable expansion -- an expansion that contains a quote character doesn't have the quote character removed.
also, a single \ doesn't have to be quoted either replace_string='\'
Do you mean in the assignment statement? Backslash has no effect as an
escape character within single quotes.
--
``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer
``Ars longa, vita brevis'' - Hippocrates
Chet Ramey, UTech, CWRU c...@case.edu http://tiswww.cwru.edu/~chet/
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