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eantoranz 06-26-2013 09:14 AM
bash - how to keep echo from replacing backslashes stuff?
 
Hi!

I'm reading a SQL input with readme in order to do some processing with the lines and then I use echo to write them into STDOUT. Something like this:

Code:
IFS=''
while readline line; do
    # I do some processing
    echo "$line"
done
I tried echo -e and -E and with both the echo removes a "\\" and writes "\" and it should write "\\".

Thanks in advance

szboardstretcher 06-26-2013 09:26 AM
You can always use cat...

Code:
inputfile="$(cat < testfile)"

for line in $inputfile
do
 echo -E $line
done
Code:
testfile:
\\what
\\\what
\what
Code:
output:
>for line in $inputfile
> do
>  echo -E $line
> done
\\what
\\\what
\what

ntubski 06-26-2013 10:03 AM
It's not echo that is removing the slashes, but rather read. A solution is to use read -r:

Quote:
read [-ers] [-a aname] [-d delim] [-i text] [-n nchars] [-N nchars] [-p prompt] [-t timeout] [-u fd] [name …]
...
-r
If this option is given, backslash does not act as an escape character. The backslash is considered to be part of the line. In particular, a backslash-newline pair may not be used as a line continuation.

Quote:
Originally Posted by szboardstretcher
You can always use cat...
Ooh, David the H. is going to be so mad :tisk: :p

eantoranz 06-26-2013 10:08 AM
read -r did the trick. Thank you very much.


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