On 01/03/2015 07:47 AM, Hylton Conacher (ZR1HPC) wrote:
I have looked at the BASH beginners guide that states "The backslash in a terminal view or command synopsis indicates an unfinished line. In other words, if you see a long command that is cut into multiple lines, \ means "Don't press Enter yet!" "
So I understand it means the command is not finished yet, but when I executed my command above, without \, it executed without error.
You read, you quote back, but you don't seem to understand. The \<newline> convention is for readability. A single command line expression may run to greater to the width of your display. How to make it clear that is should be one single line, yet still make it readable? Split it up but make use of "continuation character". This is not a new concept, this is not unique to BASH. See, for example http://www.cs.mtu.edu/~shene/COURSES/cs201/NOTES/chap01/continue.html That's from FORTRAN-77, but dates back even further. I can see it in FORTRAN-66 and think it is in FORTRAN-IV of 1961. The "don't press enter yet" is incorrect, it should be "don't terminate the command line and execute yet". The whole point is that while typing you do type the backslash and then enter, but this is not a "command ended now execute" enter. -- /"\ \ / ASCII Ribbon Campaign X Against HTML Mail / \ -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org