5.5 Escaping , quoting

Escaping - providing a \ (backslash) before a wildcard to remove its special meaning 

Quoting -  enclosing the wildcard or entire pattern within quotes. Anything within these quotes is left alone by the shell and not interpreted. 

Escaping *

Escaping [ ] 

Escaping the SPACE

Escaping the \

Escaping the newline character


Escaping is tedious when there are many characters to protect, quoting is better solution.


e.g. $rm 'chap*'       or   $rm chap\*

       $rm "My Document.doc"                  or  $rm My\ Document.doc

       $echo 'The characters |, <, > and $ are special'

        $echo The character \| , \< , \>  and \$ are special

Note - Single quotes protect all the characters. Double quotes do not protect $ and ' (backquote) 



Last modified: Friday, 6 December 2019, 8:27 PM