Bash Reference Manual: ANSI-C Quoting

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3.1.2.4 ANSI-C Quoting

Words of the form $'string' are treated specially. The word expands to string, with backslash-escaped characters replaced as specified by the ANSI C standard. Backslash escape sequences, if present, are decoded as follows:

\a: alert (bell)
\b: backspace
\e: an escape character (not ANSI C)
\f: form feed
\n: newline
\r: carriage return
\t: horizontal tab
\v: vertical tab
\\: backslash
\': single quote
\nnn: the eight-bit character whose value is the octal value nnn (one to three digits)
\xHH: the eight-bit character whose value is the hexadecimal value HH (one or two hex digits)

The expanded result is single-quoted, as if the dollar sign had not been present.

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