GNU bug report logs - #77934
bug: md5sum: Escaped backslashes in filename got in stdout

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Package: coreutils;

Reported by: William Johnson <oi_mate <at> mail.ru>

Date: Sun, 20 Apr 2025 06:34:01 UTC

Severity: normal

Tags: notabug

Done: Paul Eggert <eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu>

Bug is archived. No further changes may be made.

Full log

Message #15 received at 77934 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Pádraig Brady <P <at> draigBrady.com>
To: William Johnson <oi_mate <at> mail.ru>, 77934 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#77934: bug: md5sum: Escaped backslashes in filename got in
 stdout
Date: Sun, 20 Apr 2025 17:08:35 +0100

tag 77934 notabug
close 77934
stop

On 20/04/2025 00:44, William Johnson via GNU coreutils Bug Reports wrote:
> 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.

That's expected and documented behavior.
Consider using --zero for programmatic use of these utilities,
in which case the escaping is not used (required).

cheers,
Pádraig
This bug report was last modified 33 days ago.

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