Re: How to convert <binaryGlowMixedWithASCII> to pure ASCII

On 15.05.2025 08:08, Alexis wrote:

Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> writes:
 

Concerning portability the question in the first place is IMO what to
do with those '\u....' . - I don't think this is standard, or is it?
>
So if it's non-standard we could use arbitrary common but non-standard
shell features.
>
Like the shell built-in 'printf' without $'...' to use just '...'.
Or IMO best just the already suggested ANSI strings  var=$'...' .

 
The 'echo' utility as specified by the current version of POSIX,
POSIX-1.2024, isn't required to support the '\u...' sequence:
 
  https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9799919799/utilities/echo.html#tag_20_37_04
 
Nor is the 'printf' utility:
 
  https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9799919799/utilities/printf.html#tag_20_96

Thanks for the confirmation!

 
and OpenBSD Ksh doesn't support using that sequence in an argument to
its 'echo' builtin.

Original Ksh's 'echo' supports it if provided as ANSI string $'...',
and its 'printf' even as plain string.

$ echo -ne $'\u0027\u2018\u2019\u0022\u201c\u201d\n'
'‘’"“”
$ printf '\u0027\u2018\u2019\u0022\u201c\u201d\n'
'‘’"“”

 
Additionally, this version of POSIX added dollar-single quotes to the
standard:
 
  A sequence of characters starting with a <dollar-sign> immediately
  followed by a single-quote ($') shall preserve the literal value of
  all characters up to an unescaped terminating single-quote (')

Yes, this syntax is what ksh93 supports and had introduced as "ANSI
String", where Ksh does an interpretation of the escaped characters.
I suppose POSIX allows the syntax at least to not have scripts using
it be sort of "non-standard" because of that? - Or does POSIX support
ANSI strings with escaped characters interpreted, meanwhile?

 
  -- https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9799919799/utilities/V3_chap02.html#tag_19_02_04
 
However, although it's supported by Bash, ATT Ksh, and Zsh, it doesn't
seem to be supported by Dash (as of version 0.5.12):

I'm not surprised.

 
  $ eg=$'\n'
  $ printf '%s' "${eg}" | od -c
  0000000   $   \   n
  0000003
  $
 
or by OpenBSD Ksh (as of the version included in OpenBSD 7.6; not sure
about its status in 7.7):

I'm also not surprised. - I generally suggest to use the ksh93u+m
version which (roughly) is a bug-fixed version of the meanwhile
unsupported original ksh93u+.

 
  $ eg=$'\n'
  $ printf '%s' "${eg}" | od -c
  0000000    $   \   n                                                   
  0000003
  $
 
(i should probably add a table about this to a page on the Gentoo wiki
that i've been slowly working on,
https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Shell/Scripting )
 
 
Alexis.

Have fun! :-)

Janis