string-unescape - expand escape sequences

Synopsis

string escape [(-n | --no-quoted)] [--style=xxx] [STRING...]
string unescape [--style=xxx] [STRING...]

Description

string escape escapes each STRING in one of three ways. The first is --style=script. This is the default. It alters the string such that it can be passed back to eval to produce the original argument again. By default, all special characters are escaped, and quotes are used to simplify the output when possible. If -n or --no-quoted is given, the simplifying quoted format is not used. Exit status: 0 if at least one string was escaped, or 1 otherwise.

--style=var ensures the string can be used as a variable name by hex encoding any non-alphanumeric characters. The string is first converted to UTF-8 before being encoded.

--style=url ensures the string can be used as a URL by hex encoding any character which is not legal in a URL. The string is first converted to UTF-8 before being encoded.

--style=regex escapes an input string for literal matching within a regex expression. The string is first converted to UTF-8 before being encoded.

string unescape performs the inverse of the string escape command. If the string to be unescaped is not properly formatted it is ignored. For example, doing string unescape --style=var (string escape --style=var $str) will return the original string. There is no support for unescaping --style=regex.

Examples

>_ echo \\x07 | string escape
cg

>_ string escape --style=var 'a1 b2'\\u6161
a1_20b2__c_E6_85_A1