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Node:patch Quoting Style, Previous:patch and Keyboard Input, Up:patch Messages

patch Quoting Style

When patch outputs a file name in a diagnostic message, it can format the name in any of several ways. This can be useful to output file names unambiguously, even if they contain punctuation or special characters like newlines. The --quoting-style=word option controls how names are output. The word should be one of the following:

literal

Output names as-is.

shell

Quote names for the shell if they contain shell metacharacters or would cause ambiguous output.

shell-always

Quote names for the shell, even if they would normally not require quoting.

c

Quote names as for a C language string.

escape

Quote as with c except omit the surrounding double-quote characters.

You can specify the default value of the --quoting-style option with the environment variable QUOTING_STYLE. If that environment variable is not set, the default value is shell, but this default may change in a future version of patch.