backslash preceding a shell command

kurtcpp · 03-21-2011, 04:19 AM

Hi everyone,
Reading a BASH script, I saw a find command preceded with a backslash.
It was similar to this:

Code:

`\find . -type f -name '*.xml' -print > xmlfilelist`

Please, can someone explain me the point of the backslash here?
It's impossible to find documentation about this in man pages or on the internet, since 'backslash' are always evoked along with special characters.
I also noticed that even though the command was surrounded with backquotes, the result was not affected to any variable.
Maybe the backslash's presence is related with this?

Thanks to all for your help!
Cheers!

Kurt

colucix · 03-21-2011, 04:33 AM

Hi and welcome to LinuxQuestions!

A command preceded by backslash is executed as is, for example aliases are not in effect. You can easily verify this using the ls command, which normally is aliased to something like 'ls --color=tty':

Code:

\ls

Edit: this behaviour is mentioned here. Strangely, I cannot find any reference in the Advanced Bash Scripting Guide or in the Bash Reference Manual, but maybe it's hidden among the lines. Anyway, it's not shell specific: I used it on SUN OS machines with /bin/tcsh as default shell.

kurtcpp · 03-22-2011, 04:05 AM

Hi Colucix!
Thanks a lot for your answer!!
That question had been gnawing at me for weeks now!
Cheers!

Kurt