Hi,
The help text for echo describes the effect of the backslash escape
\c like this:
$ help echo | grep '\\c'
\c suppress trailing newline
But what it actually does is different:
$ echo -e "before \c after \a"
before $
It cancels all characters that come after it. The printf command
from coreutils has a nice concise description for it:
$ /usr/bin/printf --help | grep '\\c'
\c produce no further output
Attached patch makes bash's builtin echo use the same description.
Benno
diff -ur bash-3.2.orig/builtins/echo.def bash-3.2/builtins/echo.def
--- bash-3.2.orig/builtins/echo.def 2006-09-08 19:41:17.000000000 +0200
+++ bash-3.2/builtins/echo.def 2008-08-12 12:30:43.000000000 +0200
@@ -42,7 +42,7 @@
following backslash-escaped characters is turned on:
\a alert (bell)
\b backspace
- \c suppress trailing newline
+ \c produce no further output
\E escape character
\f form feed
\n new line
diff -ur bash-3.2.orig/doc/bash.1 bash-3.2/doc/bash.1
--- bash-3.2.orig/doc/bash.1 2006-10-03 14:54:26.000000000 +0200
+++ bash-3.2/doc/bash.1 2008-08-12 12:28:16.000000000 +0200
@@ -6617,7 +6617,7 @@
backspace
.TP
.B \ec
-suppress trailing newline
+produce no further output
.TP
.B \ee
an escape character
diff -ur bash-3.2.orig/doc/bashref.texi bash-3.2/doc/bashref.texi
--- bash-3.2.orig/doc/bashref.texi 2006-09-28 16:25:28.000000000 +0200
+++ bash-3.2/doc/bashref.texi 2008-08-12 12:30:08.000000000 +0200
@@ -3323,7 +3323,7 @@
@item \b
backspace
@item \c
-suppress trailing newline
+produce no further output
@item \e
escape
@item \f
