> 
> but then "printf" cannot yet do what "vis -ctl" can (though it wouldn't
> be hard to fix -- something the opposite of '%b' is all that's really
> needed, and really printf(3) needs such features too!)

One of the many print/echo lumps of code I've looked at in the last week
or so carefully escaped non-printables (or at least doubled up \ chars)
so that the output would look the same as the input.

This verison is particularly un-useful (IIRC it was a posix variant!).

Given that echo is often used for semi-formatted output, the ability
to generate control characters is actually very useful.
It is actually much rarer to have \ sequences inside the text
to be displayed.

(How many filenames on your system have \ in them?)


	David

-- 
David Laight: david@l8s.co.uk