\n in variable in heredoc

Question

Is there any way to for a Bash heredoc to interpret \'\\n\\\' in a heredoc?

I have an iteratively built string in a loop, something like

for i in wor         


        

Answer 1

As others (and other answers to other questions) have said, you can put encoded characters into a string for the shell to interpret.

x=$'\n' # newline
printf -v x '\n' # newline

That said, I don't believe there is any way to directly put an encoded newline into a heredoc.

cat <

just outputs a literal \n

cat <<$'EOF'
…
EOF

is nothing special, nor is <<'EOF'

The best you can do is to preencode the newline, and include the expansion in the heredoc:

nl=$'\n'
cat <

outputs

foo bar
 baz