How to escape single and double quotes in Bash

Question

I have a script that takes text as an argument and encodes it. If the text contains only single quotes I surround it with double and vice versa, but it gets tricky if it contains both because it will be closed at first appearance.

script "I can't use "test" text" // Double quote will be terminated at "I can't use "

So how can I escape both cases without using a backslash, like in Python using triple single, or double quotes.

script '''I can't use "test" text''' // or script """I can't use "test" text"""

There's nothing like triple quotes or raw strings in bash. Why without using backslash? — Barmar
– Barmar, Commented Jul 11, 2022 at 19:03
I may pass huge text which I will copy/paste from somewhere. And adding backslashes to every quote isn't easy. — user16965639
– user16965639, Commented Jul 11, 2022 at 19:05
So read the text from stdin rather than making it an argument. — choroba
– choroba, Commented Jul 11, 2022 at 19:06
@KamilCuk If you type echo "I can't use "test" text" you won't see the quotes around test — Barmar
– Barmar, Commented Jul 11, 2022 at 19:09

Barmar · Accepted Answer · 2022-07-11 19:12:15Z

Use a here-document, and use command subsitution to turn it into an argument.

script "$(cat <<'EOF' I can't use "test" text EOF)"

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