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)
\cx
-
a control-x character
The expanded result is single-quoted, as if the dollar sign had not
been present.