Double Quotes (Bash Reference Manual)
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3.1.2.3 Double Quotes
Enclosing characters in double quotes (‘"
’) preserves the literal value of all characters within the quotes, with the exception of ‘$
’, ‘`
’, ‘\
’, and, when history expansion is enabled, ‘!
’. When the shell is in POSIX mode (see Bash POSIX Mode), the ‘!
’ has no special meaning within double quotes, even when history expansion is enabled. The characters ‘$
’ and ‘`
’ retain their special meaning within double quotes (see Shell Expansions). The backslash retains its special meaning only when followed by one of the following characters: ‘$
’, ‘`
’, ‘"
’, ‘\
’, or newline
. Within double quotes, backslashes that are followed by one of these characters are removed. Backslashes preceding characters without a special meaning are left unmodified. A double quote may be quoted within double quotes by preceding it with a backslash. If enabled, history expansion will be performed unless an ‘!
’ appearing in double quotes is escaped using a backslash. The backslash preceding the ‘!
’ is not removed.
The special parameters ‘*
’ and ‘@
’ have special meaning when in double quotes (see Shell Parameter Expansion).