Re: how to (safely) escape an arbitrary string for use in PS1

[Alex fxmbsw7 Ratchev]

maybe you wanted \$var and \$(cmd)

On Wed, May 19, 2021, 21:11 Christoph Anton Mitterer <calestyo@scientia.net>
wrote:

> Hey.
>
> Thanks, neither of them seems to work as desired:
>
> The basic premise is e.g.:
> foo='$(ls) \() ()'
>
> and the content of $foo shall be used *literally* within PS1.
>
> When doing:
> $ PS1='$foo '
> $(ls) \() ()
>
> here it works, the prompt becomes that ugly string.
>
> When doing:
> $ PS1="$foo "
> ...
>
> it doesn't work, $(ls) undergoes command substitution.
>
>
> On Wed, 2021-05-19 at 20:21 +0200, Alex fxmbsw7 Ratchev wrote:
> > you want the backslashes or so be visible ?
> > try ${var@Q}
> This seems to merely quote the string like the following:
> printf '%s' "${foo@Q}"
> '$(ls) \() ()'
>
>
> But using that inside PS1:
> PS1="${foo@Q} "         # double quotes obviously
> ...
>
> again leads to substitution
>
> On Wed, 2021-05-19 at 20:22 +0200, Alex fxmbsw7 Ratchev wrote:
> > alao aee printf %q directive
>
> As I mentioned before, that doesn't work either:
> $ printf '%q' "$foo"
> \$\(ls\)\ \\\(\)\ \(\)
>
> e.g. using:
> escaped="$(printf '%q' "$foo")"
>
> PS1="${escaped} "
> $\(ls\)\ \(\)\ \(\)
>
> so while the $ is correctly escaped, all kinds of other stuff, like the
> parentheses, is too.
>
>
>
> Cheers,
> Chris.
>
>