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From: xwang@gmuvax2.gmu.edu (Xiang-Min Wang)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.shell
Subject: how to echo the '
Keywords: metachar, escape char
Message-ID: <3841@gmuvax2.gmu.edu>
Date: 20 Mar 91 02:04:55 GMT
Organization: George Mason Univ., Fairfax, Va.
Lines: 39

I saw the following msg sometimes before:

	OK, in csh, I want to have this string echo'd...     ^[=@'^[H8
	Problem being, I can't get the ' to be echo'd.
	(I am putting this command into a shell script.)
	If I use the command...

	echo '=@'H8'

	...it thinks the string to be echo'd ends at the second '
	If I use the command...

	echo '=@\'H8'

	...it sees the \ as a character, thus moving the the wrong
	cursor position (this is a terminal plotting command).

      /vv\   \        	      __Insight from Oregon...Scott P. Nichols
_____/    \   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~                      (nichols@en.ecn.purdue.edu)

Could you try:

	echo =@\'H8

I am sure this command gives the string =@'H8 echoed (but I am not sure
that is you want).

the single quote ' and the backslash \ are the csh metacharacters.
their functions are escaping the other csh metacharacters. a character
immediately following the backslash \ is not interpreted by csh (so that
' is echoed in my example). characters between two single quotes are not
interpreted by csh either (so the \ seen as a character in your
example).

BTW, on my machine (ultrix 4.x), the ' has to be matched.

good luck.

xwang