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how to apply ANSI escape codes when a backslash precedes the escape code

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I am using ANSI escape codes in a shell script to colorize some parts of a string. For example, here I add the text NOTE with a red background color at the end of $var:

$ var='test'
$ echo $var'\e[41mNOTE\e[0m'

good output

This works as intended. However, if $var has a backslash at the end, this technique won't work because the backslash at the end of $var and at the beginning of the first escape code are joined together to form \\, which is interpreted as a single backslash character:

$ var='test\'
$ echo $var'\e[41mNOTE\e[0m'

bad output

The variable $var is obtained from lines of various files, and widely varies. So ideally, I am looking for a solution that does not require checking the last character of $var.

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1 answer

+3
−0

I figured out a solution myself. You can use two echo commands to print the two strings separately, where the -n option is used for the first string to prevent the insertion a trailing newline at the end:

$ var='test\'
$ echo -n $var; echo '\e[41mNOTE\e[0m'

fixed output

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