Subject: bug: md5sum: Escaped backslashes in filename got in stdout

From: William Johnson <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 20 Apr 2025 02:44:15 +0300

Hello. I would like to report a bug for md5sum coreutil.
If filename has ‘\t’ in filename, stdout for md5sum result will start with backslash symbol.
 
*  My version of md5sum util:
md5sum --version
md5sum (GNU coreutils) 8.32
 
*  Set of commands to reproduce:
$ touch hello
$ touch hello\t\\t\\\t\\\\t
$ md5sum ./*
d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e  ./hello
\d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e  ./hellot\\t\\t\\\\t
 
*  Expected no backshash symbol in stdout line 2. This is not  a big deal as files with backslashes in names are rare, but if someone process md5sums with regexp this case might ruin their work. Theoretically.
Thank you.
--
William Johnson