Why bash encapsulates syntax error both with grave accent and with an apostrophe?

Question

When bash is reporting a syntax error, it encapsulates the text which has raised the syntax error both with grave accent and with an apostrophe, like this: `...'. Any idea why?

Here's an example:

$ bash -c "echo error()"
bash: -c: line 0: syntax error near unexpected token `('
bash: -c: line 0: `echo error()'

This is not very common; however, I am just curious, this is not a real problem.

Edit: this gets weirder with obscure messages like this one:

-bash: unexpected EOF while looking for matching ``'

May have common roots with [Where does backtick and single quote come from when denoting commands e.g. `prog'? duplicate]. — manatwork, Mar 28 '14 at 10:58
The answer is here: "Why do Unix man pages use double backticks in place of double quotes?" — Ouki, Mar 28 '14 at 11:06

Warren Young · Accepted Answer · 2014-03-29T17:10:02.447

7

In certain fonts, those quotation marks will appear as opposing pairs of curled single quotes. It's passé in today's Unicode world, but the code and practices that produced such quoting derive from a time before Unicode, or before its widespread availability.

edited Mar 29 '14 at 17:10

answered Mar 28 '14 at 11:30

Warren Young

72,032

2

More than one could possibly wish to know on the topic: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ucs/quotes.html – mr.spuratic Mar 28 '14 at 11:39
1

+1 for using "passe'" in a technical answer. Bravo, sir! – Mar 29 '14 at 15:20

Why bash encapsulates syntax error both with grave accent and with an apostrophe?

1 Answers1