[ On Saturday, January 26, 2002 at 16:08:43 (-0500), kpneal@pobox.com wrote: ]
> Subject: Re:  fix for pd-ksh globbing
>
> On Fri, Jan 25, 2002 at 03:36:15PM -0500, Greg A. Woods wrote:
> > too.  ("A single-quote cannot occur within single-quotes.  A backslash
> > cannot be used to escape a single-quote in a single-quoted string.")
> 
> Can a single-quote be escaped by putting it inside double-quotes
> (inside the single-quotes)?

Yes, but not within the single-quotes, at least not in POSIX/SUSv2.  A
double-quote character within a single-quoted string has no special
meaning:

	$ echo 'foo"bar'     
	foo"bar
	$ 

You have to end the single-quoted string, double-quote the single quote,
and then start the single-quoted string.  The whole thing will still be
treated as one field.  This does work for both /bin/sh and /bin/ksh on
NetBSD.

> It seems to work on HP-UX ksh I think.

That's strange.  What KSH version is it?  It should not.  It does not
work in KSH M-11/16/88i, as shipped with SunOS-5.8 (and earlier).

	$ echo 'foo"'"bar'   
	>>> <INTR>
	$ echo 'foo'"'"'bar'
	foo'bar
	$ 

> Make's :Q modifier gets this
> wrong.

Hmmmm.....  so it does....  I see I have a related bug in some of my
own code too!  ;-)

-- 
								Greg A. Woods

+1 416 218-0098;  <gwoods@acm.org>;  <g.a.woods@ieee.org>;  <woods@robohack.ca>
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