ANSI-C Quoting (Bash Reference Manual)
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3.1.2.4 ANSI-C Quoting
Words of the form $'string'
are treated specially. The word expands to string
, with backslash-escaped characters replaced as specified by the ANSI C standard. Backslash escape sequences, if present, are decoded as follows:
\a
- alert (bell)
\b
- backspace
\e
\E
- an escape character (not ANSI C)
\f
- form feed
\n
- newline
\r
- carriage return
\t
- horizontal tab
\v
- vertical tab
\\
- backslash
\'
- single quote
\"
- double quote
\?
- question mark
\nnn
- the eight-bit character whose value is the octal value
nnn
(one to three octal digits) \xHH
- the eight-bit character whose value is the hexadecimal value
HH
(one or two hex digits) \uHHHH
- the Unicode (ISO/IEC 10646) character whose value is the hexadecimal value
HHHH
(one to four hex digits) \UHHHHHHHH
- the Unicode (ISO/IEC 10646) character whose value is the hexadecimal value
HHHHHHHH
(one to eight hex digits) \cx
- a control-
x
character
The expanded result is single-quoted, as if the dollar sign had not been present.