Debian Bug report logs - #698593
dash does not obey POSIX quoting rules for backlashes in single quotes

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Message #5 received at [email protected] (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Norman Ramsey <[email protected]>

To: Debian Bug Tracking System <[email protected]>

Subject: dash does not obey POSIX quoting rules for backlashes in single quotes

Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2013 15:24:35 -0500

Package: dash
Version: 0.5.5.1-7.4
Severity: important

POSIX rules specify that a backslash receive no special treatment
when within single quotes.  Unfortunately dash does not obey:

  : nr@homedog 10452 ; /bin/ksh93
  : nr@homedog 10453 ; echo 'hello\n'
  hello\n
  : nr@homedog 10454 ; /bin/dash
  : nr@homedog ! ; echo 'hello\n'
  hello

  : nr@homedog ! ;

This bug is breaking my POSIX-compliant shell scripts.


-- System Information:
Debian Release: 6.0.6
  APT prefers stable
  APT policy: (990, 'stable'), (500, 'stable-updates'), (100, 'testing')
Architecture: i386 (i686)

Kernel: Linux 3.2.0-4-686-pae (SMP w/4 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash

Versions of packages dash depends on:
ii  debianutils                   3.4        Miscellaneous utilities specific t
ii  dpkg                          1.15.8.13  Debian package management system
ii  libc6                         2.13-37    Embedded GNU C Library: Shared lib

dash recommends no packages.

dash suggests no packages.

-- debconf information:
* dash/sh: true

Message #10 received at [email protected] (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Jonathan Nieder <[email protected]>

To: Norman Ramsey <[email protected]>

Cc: [email protected]

Subject: Re: dash does not obey POSIX quoting rules for backlashes in single quotes

Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2013 13:09:31 -0800

forcemerge 538100 698593
quit

Hi Norman,

Norman Ramsey wrote:

>   : nr@homedog ! ; echo 'hello\n'
>   hello
>
>   : nr@homedog ! ;
>
> This bug is breaking my POSIX-compliant shell scripts.

Not POSIX-compliant, unfortunately.  See

  http://bugs.debian.org/613473
  http://bugs.debian.org/538100
  http://bugs.debian.org/490605

Your best bet for the future is to use

	printf '%s\n' 'hello\n'

Sorry I don't have better news,
Jonathan

Message #23 received at [email protected] (full text, mbox, reply):

From: [email protected] (Norman Ramsey)

To: [email protected]

Subject: mistake -- problem is in echo builtin

Date: Mon, 21 Jan 2013 22:54:18 -0500

I misdiagnosed the problem.  Further investigation reveals
that dash is handling quoting correctly, but that dash's
builtin 'echo' function is converting those escape sequences.
The POSIX standard for 'echo' says that behavior with 
backslash is implementation-defined.  So there is no bug after all.

Please close this ticket, and I apologize for the noise.


Norman Ramsey

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