Re: BUG? - 4.0.2 - parameter substitution won't double backslashes in values

[Bart Schaefer <schaefer@brasslantern.com>]

On Thu, 7 Feb 2002, Derek Peschel wrote:

> But I would still expect some change (a backspace should change to "\b" when
> using "print", or "\b" should change to "\\b" when using "print -r").

Um, no.  With "print" a "\b" changes to backspace; with "print -r", "\b"
remains "\b".  In either case a literal backspace remains a backspace.

If you want to convert backspace and other "control characters" to a
visible representation, you can use the (V) parameter flag:

zsh% bs=$(print -n '\b')
zsh% print ${(V)bs}
^H

Note that the conversion from '\b' to backspace was done by print, and the
conversion from backspace to ^H was done by parameter expansion.  There is
no built-in mechanism to convert from backspace to '\b'.