February 2001
Beginner to intermediate
448 pages
9h 2m
English
Line continuation is the capability to have a command span more than one line. Two ways of causing a line continuation are available. The first was done accidentally earlier in the chapter; this method is not recommended. It is done by not closing a quote:
$ echo 'hell > o world > this > is line > continuation the > non- > recommended > way!' hell o world this is line continuation the non- recommended way!
This happens because the newline character loses its specialness within the single quotes. This means that instead of signifying that the user is ready to submit a command for processing, the user wants to have the new line as part of the string. Here's the other method:
$ echo Hell\ > o world \ > this \ > is line \ > continuation ...
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