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how to apply ANSI escape codes when a backslash precedes the escape code
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'
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'
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
.
1 answer
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'
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