How to excape special syntax characters in string variable in bash

Question

GIVEN:

A string variable containing characters that are used by bash for expansion or as delimiters, e.g.

> path="/this/path/contains whitespace/and/asterisk */myfile.txt"

GOAL:

I want to expand the variable in a way that those bash syntax elements are backslashed (or disabled but not simply quoted), i.e. the output of solution would be

> solution $path
/this/path/contains\ whitespace/and/asterisk\ \*/myfile.txt

QUESTION:

Isn't there a command in bash that does that, rather than having to struggle with all special characters on my own?

M. Nejat Aydin · Accepted Answer · 2022-06-15 07:16:28Z

1

Use the %q specifier of printf (a bash builtin):

path="/this/path/contains whitespace/and/asterisk */myfile.txt"
printf '%q\n' "$path"

edited Jun 15, 2022 at 7:16

answered Jun 15, 2022 at 7:10

M. Nejat Aydin

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2 Comments

Shawn Over a year ago

Recent (5.0+?) versions also support escaped=${original@Q}

David C. Rankin Over a year ago

You have to be careful with, e.g. ${original@Q} which may simply single-quote the string.

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