Quote terminal
Here is a more practical example of quoting special characters. To use a literal backslash, just surround it with quotes ( '\') or, even better, backslash-escape it ( \\ ). will produce the same results as if you surrounded the string with single quotes. Ht1528 - Enabling and using the 'root' user in macOS. For example: echo 2 \ 3 \> 5 is a valid inequality. Quote type Name Meaning Example (type at shell prompt) ' The double quote The double quote ( 'quote' ) protects everything enclosed between two double quote marks except, ', ' and \.Use the double quotes when you want only variables and command substitution. If ^D doesn't work, type 'stty -a' to see what the eof character is. The special parameters * and have special meaning when in double quotes.Įnd Of File is usually CTRL+D (^D) when input is from the keyboard. A double quote may be quoted within double quotes by preceding it with a backslash. Backslashes preceding characters without a special meaning are Within double quotes, backslashes that are followed by one of these characters are removed. The backslash preceding the ! is not removed. If enabled, history expansion will be performed unless an ! appearing in double quotes is escaped using a backslash.
Retains its special meaning only when followed by one of the following characters: $, `, ", \, or newline. The characters $ and ` retain their special meaning within double quotes. Single quotes, even when preceded by a backslash.Įnclosing characters in double quotes ( ") preserves the literal value of all characters within the quotes, with the exception of $, `, and \ and, when history expansion is enabled, !. Single QuotesĮnclosing characters in single quotes ( ') preserves the literal value of every character within the quotes. (that is, it is removed from the input stream and effectively ignored). If a \newline pair appears, and the backslash itself is not quoted, the \newline is treated as a line continuation It preserves the literal value of the next character that follows, with the exception of newline. Escape CharacterĪ non-quoted backslash \ is the Bash escape character. Whenever you pass a variable to a command, you should probably quote it.Įach of the shell metacharacters has special meaning to the shell and must be quoted if it is to represent itself. To prevent reserved words from being recognized as such, and to prevent parameter expansion. Quoting can be used to disable special treatment for special characters, Quoting is used to remove the special meaning of certain characters or words to the shell. How-to: Escape Characters, delimiters and Quotes Quoting