DEBCONF-ESCAPE(1)

💖 NAME 💖

debconf-escape — the lil helper bestie you call when you're working with debconf's escape capability 🫶

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

debconf-escape -e < unescaped-text
debconf-escape -u < escaped-text

Two moods, two flags: -e gets fed unescaped text on stdin, -u gets fed escaped text on stdin. Slurp it in, get the other flavour out 💅

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

okay so plot twist: when debconf has the 'escape' capability set, it fully expects the commands you send it to have backslashes and newlines escaped — that's "\\" for the backslash and "\n" for the newline, respectively ✨

And it's giving mutual, bestie — debconf turns around and escapes backslashes and newlines in its replies too 🔁💖

What's that actually good for, you ask? (iconic question, ty for asking 🎀)

• subbing multi-line strings into templates, literally so easy
• getting multi-line extended descriptions reliably using "METAGET" 🔥

no cap, that's the whole vibe. the escaping just keeps your newlines from getting ate 💀

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🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

• debconf-devel(7) — which is available in the debconf-doc package 👑

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👑 AUTHOR 👑

Colin Watson <cjwatson@debian.org> — thank you for your service, we are obsessed 🫶🌸

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mwah 💜 this page is from the Debconf docs, dated 2026-02-16 — go forth and escape responsibly, bestie, ily 🎀✨