When you type dir in terminal, the name file with space separate with symbol backslash \

Question

Terminal Text

$ cd LALALA
~/LALALA $ dir
la\ la\ 1 la\ la\ 2
~/LALALA $

Directory Image

When I use dir command in terminal, the list of file show \ (backslash) to separate their word (see: Terimanal Image). Whereas in the origin, there is no '\' (backslash) (see: Directory Image). How do I change this back to normal?

NB. I think the reason is because of the pwd command on the terminal. After I use the PWD command, this happens.

The backslashes are escaping the spaces in the names. It might be easier to see with the option -l "space minus ell": Try with dir -l or ls -l — sudodus, Nov 21 '19 at 08:13

score 11 · Accepted Answer · edited Nov 21 '19 at 17:55

What you experience is quoting, dir has the -N or --literal option to disable it:

-N, --literal
       print entry names without quoting

The exact same applies to ls, just that it quotes the whole filenames with single quotes instead of escaping special characters (which can be triggered with -b or --escape for ls as well). Calling ls with -N disables this behaviour as well.

Example run

$ touch 'la la '{1,2}
$ dir
la\ la\ 1  la\ la\ 2
$ dir -N
la la 1  la la 2
$ ls
'la la 1'  'la la 2'
$ ls -b
la\ la\ 1  la\ la\ 2
$ ls -N
la la 1  la la 2

When you type dir in terminal, the name file with space separate with symbol backslash \

Terminal Text

Directory Image

1 Answers1

Example run

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