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Re: $\n doesn't get expanded between double-quotes
From: |
Chet Ramey |
Subject: |
Re: $\n doesn't get expanded between double-quotes |
Date: |
Fri, 03 Jul 2009 13:11:03 -0400 |
User-agent: |
Thunderbird 2.0.0.22 (Macintosh/20090605) |
Chris F.A. Johnson wrote:
> On Fri, 3 Jul 2009, fsc-log-rjn@richardneill.org wrote:
>> Fix:
>> $'\n' should be expanded within double-quotes, like other variables
>> are.
>> Otherwise, please correct the man-page to make it clearer.
>
> $'\n' is not a variable. As the man page says:
>
> Words of the form $'string' are treated specially.
>
> Note "Words". Inside double quotes, $'\n' is not a word.
Richard is correct that the manual page does not quite represent the
current behavior accurately. I think that replacing "Words" with
"Unquoted strings" or "Unquoted substrings" or even "Single-quoted
strings preceded by an unquoted '$' are treated specially." might
be better.
For instance, you can use
X=a$'\n'b ; echo "$X"
or
echo a$'\n'b
to obtain the results Richard wants, and the ansi-c quoted portions of
the strings are not words.
Chet
--
``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer
Chet Ramey, ITS, CWRU chet@case.edu http://cnswww.cns.cwru.edu/~chet/