Re: Fwd: New feature

[Greg Wooledge]

On Sat, Oct 12, 2024 at 09:50:03 -0400, Saint Michael wrote:
> The command printf needs a new flag, -e, that would mimic that way the
> same flag works with echo.
> After using printf, right now I need to lunch a second command if I
> need to expand the \n  into real new lines.
> 
> PROCEDURE_INFO=$(echo  -e "${PROCEDURE_INFO}")
> this step would be redundant if printf had the flag.

Use the %b format specifier to expand backslashes in an argument.

hobbit:~$ var='a\tb\040c\x20d'
hobbit:~$ printf '%b\n' "$var"
a       b c d

If you want the result in a variable, then:

    printf -v newvar %b "$oldvar"