How can I get shell to read special characters as strings? Such as $ or !

abefroman · 01-23-2015, 06:11 PM

Code:

$ ./test.sh "!hooray!"
bash: !hooray!: event not found
$ ./test.sh !hooray!
bash: !hooray!: event not found

If I escape it, the \ prints in the output:

Code:

$ ./test.sh "\!hooray\!"
\!hooray\!

The code of test.sh is as follows:

Code:

$ cat test.sh 
#!/bin/bash
str="$1"
echo "$str"

TIA

metaschima · 01-23-2015, 07:07 PM

Use single quotes for the input. '!hooray!'

veerain · 01-23-2015, 11:37 PM

You can use double quotes if you want a variable replaced (expanded) by its value.

Code:

var1=value
echo "abc $var1 def"