For example, I wanted to use the sort utility with the -t option to specify tab separators, but
sort -t "\t"
doesn't work.
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Why won't '\011' work? Tried it on my Linux box and for some reason it doen't work.– Bing BangJun 3, 2020 at 22:55
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I tried \t and it doesn't work, neither does \n, Is there a csh switch to turn off escaped characters? If there is, I've never heard of it.– Bing BangJun 3, 2020 at 23:26
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3 Answers
Don't use double quotes.
sort -t $'\t'
Or I think Ctrl V inserts a Tab??
Edit:
http://www.gnu.org/s/bash/manual/html_node/ANSI_002dC-Quoting.html#ANSI_002dC-Quoting
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16Control-V alone won't work; Control-V + Tab will. I like the
$'...'trick, though; now I've learned something new. :-)– L2GNov 28, 2011 at 17:04 -
I've always learned it as
$' '. It allows you to enter a string, but also have escaped characters. Double quoting literally prints\tIf you leave off the quotes you get a tab character.– surfasbNov 28, 2011 at 17:09
Try Control-v, then Tab. If you see the cursor tab over to the right, it worked.
According to the comment by Mark you can also try Control-v and then Control-i.
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3Oops. You're right. But it is entering the tab character, not doing command-line completion (which is what bash normally does with a tab). I tried
sort -t " "(with the literal tab as described above) and it worked for me.– L2GNov 28, 2011 at 16:57 -
Yep, that's what I meant by indentation. Didn't know a better term.– Daniel Beck ♦Nov 28, 2011 at 17:13
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BTW, I would love to accept both answers, but since I think surfasb's solution is more readable, I accepted hers. I like yours, too, though, so voted it up. Thanks!– MarkNov 28, 2011 at 17:23
You can also use printf:
sort -t "$(printf "\t")"
Not like $'\t', printf use double quotes which allow you to use environment variables, like below:
char="\t" # any source just plain text
sort -t "$(printf "$char")"
Single quote is static and not flexible, though it's simple, you can choose based on your requirement.
