Debugging a file name with a backslash character in Bash
# create a file name containing a backslash character \ file=${HOME}/Desktop/'te:st\file'.txt echo "${file}" echo "${file}" | sed -n -e 'l' echo 'This is a test case for a file name containing a backslash \ character!' > "${file}" open -e "${file}" set -vx # note: avoid trailing spaces in ed commands cat <<EOF | /bin/ed -s "${file}" H ,g|^This|s|test case|SUCCESSFUL TEST CASE| w EOF open -e "${file}" # escape backslashes cat <<EOF | /bin/ed -s "${file//\\/\\\\}" H ,g|^This|s|test case|SUCCESSFUL TEST CASE| w EOF open -e "${file}" # printf "%q" help printf | sed -E "s/(%q)/$(printf '\e[1m\\1\e[m')/" echo "${file}" echo "$(printf "%q" "${file}")" # cf. help printf echo "$(printf "%q" "${file}")" | sed -n -e 'l' # escape file name cat <<EOF | /bin/ed -s "$(printf "%q" "${file}")" H ,g|^This|s|backslash|BACKSLASH| w EOF open -e "${file}" echo "${file}" echo "${file}" | sed -n -e 'l' file="${file//\\/\\\\}" echo "${file}" echo "${file}" | sed -n -e 'l' # references man bash 2>/dev/null | less -p 'backslash' man bash 2>/dev/null | less -p 'Each command in a pipeline' man bash 2>/dev/null | less -p 'Functions are executed' help printf | sed -E "s/(%q)/$(printf '\e[1m\\1\e[m')/" open http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filename # "Each command in a pipeline is executed as a separate process (i.e., in a subshell)." # From: man bash # "Functions are executed in the context of the current shell; no new process is created to # interpret them (contrast this with the execution of a shell script)." # From: man bash # "Unix-like systems are an exception, as the only control character forbidden in file names # is the null character, as that's the end-of-string indicator in C. Trivially, Unix also # excludes the path separator / from appearing in filenames." # From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filename