Re: Cannot change to 'C:\' (root) on Windows

[Hans-Bernhard B. <br...@ph...>]

Juergen Wieferink wrote:
> "help syntax quotes" only says that there is no backslash processing
> of special characters.  

No such thing as 'help syntax quotes' in the 4.0 documentation.  And no 
mention of 'special characters' either.  Here's the actual text:

--- from 'help syntax', version 4.0: ---
Text may be enclosed in single- or double-quotes.  Backslash processing 
of sequences like \n (newline) and \345 (octal character code) is 
performed for double-quoted strings, but not for single-quoted strings.
---

I see no justification here for applying backslash-escaping to \' inside 
a single-quoted string.  If no other sequence is escapable inside '', 
why should \' be the only exception, and then not even be documented?

This is clearly a non-documented, completely surprising feature.  If 
that doesn't qualify it as a bug, I don't see what could.

> The behaviour you show is exactly the same as raw strings in
> python. [With the exception that gnuplot silently terminates strings
> at the end of the line.]  Really.  Backslashes are used as escape
> characters and nevertheless taken into the string.  

Not at the same time they aren't.  It's either-or.  Either your in a
double-quoted string, then backslashes are used as escape characters, or 
you're in a single-quoted string, then they're kept as they are.  It's 
as simple as that --- or at least it's supposed to be.