UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Not sure if this is possible, but I'm trying to read in a variable that needs to have its escape backslashes intact. So the person who enters the actual value does not have to type any \ characters. Example:

Code:

read list
X1000\ filecab.txt

echo "$list"

In this case the \ needs to be entered by the person who is prompted to enter input. Is there a way to preformat the read so that the \ can be inserted after the fifth character, and then a space created? Or does the person doing the input just have to remember to enter it each time?

What value you want in variable $list?
if you want X1000 filecab.txt then person have to enterX1000 filecab.txt
if you want X1000\ filecab.txt then person have to enterX1000\\ filecab.txt

Not sure if this helps or what you intend to do with the variable...
This is for bash shell

Code:

read -p "Enter string: \\" str
str="\\${str}"
echo ${str}

To tell read not to interpret backslashes, do read -r