From: MonkeeSage <MonkeeSage@...>
Date: 2007-12-18T02:40:15+09:00
Subject: Re: Backslashes in Command Line Arguments

On Dec 17, 11:05 am, Joseph Pecoraro <joepec...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > No, it's because you are using p instead of puts.
>
> > The p method prints the result of sending the inspect message to its
> > argument, and String#inspect produces a what ruby string literal to
> > represent the string looks like, and since \ is the escape character
> > in ruby string literals it needs to be escaped itself in the  output
> > of inspect.
>
> > --
> > Rick DeNatale
>
> I purposely used p instead of puts for that exact reason.  Which is how
> I noticed that if you send "\n" Ruby does not get a newline character,
> it gets a backslash n literal.
>
> Joe
> --
> Posted viahttp://www.ruby-forum.com/.

It does get a newline character...try looking at "\n"[0] (or if you're
using 1.9, "\n".ord)...you'll notice it's the ascii ordinal 10...aka
"newline". That was Robert's point. #inspect (and by proxy #p)
represent non-printing characters as their escaped symbols so that you
can actually see them. Try entering this in irb and notice the
difference betwen the input string and that printed by #p...

p "hello\x09there"

Regards,
Jordan