On Wed, Nov 15, 2017 at 09:01:52AM -0600, Rick Richardson wrote: > $ echo "$'\t' " | xod > > Dump: standard input > > Offset: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 a b c d e f 0123456789abcdef > > 00000000: 24 27 5c 74 27 20 0a | $'\t' . > | > > A Bash bug???
No. You're inside double quotes, so you parse the content accordingly. Inside double quotes, $ may begin a parameter expansion, or an arithmetic expansion, and so on. But in this case, it does not. So the $ is just taken literally. If you want to use something that expands to a tab inside double quotes, try this: tab=$'\t' echo "$tab " | xod echo "${tab}indented" | xod