Re: is it a bug that \e's dont get escaped in declare -p output

[Greg Wooledge]

On Wed, Mar 17, 2021 at 09:58:24PM +0200, Ilkka Virta wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 17, 2021 at 8:26 PM Greg Wooledge <greg@wooledge.org> wrote:
> 
> > I thought, for a moment, that bash already used $'...' quoting for
> > newlines, but it turns out that's false.  At least for declare -p.
> > It would be nice if it did, though.  Newlines, carriage returns, escape
> > characters, etc.
> >
> 
> It does in some cases:
> 
>  $ a=($'new \n line' $'and \e esc'); declare -p a
> declare -a a=([0]=$'new \n line' [1]=$'and \E esc')

But not for string variables, it seems.

unicorn:~$ unset a b; a=($'x\ny') b=$'c\nd'; declare -p a b
declare -a a=([0]=$'x\ny')
declare -- b="c
d"

It would be nice if the string variables were handled the same way as
the array elements.