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I mean the use of GNU env or BSD env command in the form of:

env [name=value ...] [utility [args ...]] 

Looks like there is no way to escape special characters in value part but I am not pretty sure how env is implemented to parse the value part.

I know there are many ways to do this by shell's feature but I want to pass literal string without shell's help (a bit like execute env by exec). That is to say, I need to find some kind of literal string format with newline and supported by env command. For example:

env FOO=LITERAL_STRING ruby -e 'puts ENV["FOO"]' 

Here the LITERAL_STRING should contain a literal string with newline and env should understand that format.

With the above command, the expected output should be:

hello world 

I wonder if it is possible. I would appreciate for your help.

I mean the use of GNU env or BSD env command in the form of:

env [name=value ...] [utility [args ...]] 

Looks like there is no way to escape special characters in value part but I am not pretty sure how env is implemented to parse the value part.

I know there are many ways to do this by shell's feature but I want to pass literal string without shell's help (a bit like execute env by exec). That is to say, I need to find some kind of literal string format with newline and supported by env command. For example:

env FOO=LITERAL_STRING ruby -e 'puts ENV["FOO"]' 

Here the LITERAL_STRING should contain a literal string with newline and env should understand that format.

With the above command, the expected output should be:

hello world 

I wonder if it is possible. I would appreciate for your help.

Environment

• env

  I use BSD env so it can't print the version. Don't know if man can help:

  $ man env | tail -n1 BSD April 17, 2008 BSD 

• OS

  $ sw_vers ProductName: macOS ProductVersion: 11.6 BuildVersion: 20G165 

I mean the use of GNU env or BSD env command in the form of:

env [name=value ...] [utility [args ...]] 

Looks like there is no way to escape special characters in value part but I am not pretty sure how env is implemented.

I know there are many ways to do this by shell like export FOO="hello\nworld". I just wonder how to achieve the same same thing using env command.

Update

To make my question clearer:

Expected

env FOO="hello\nworld" ruby -e 'puts ENV["FOO"]' hello world 

Actual

$ env FOO="hello\nworld" ruby -e 'puts ENV["FOO"]' hello\nworld 

I mean the use of GNU env or BSD env command in the form of:

env [name=value ...] [utility [args ...]] 

Looks like there is no way to escape special characters in value part but I am not pretty sure how env is implemented to parse the value part.

I know there are many ways to do this by shell's feature but I want to pass literal string without shell's help (a bit like execute env by exec). That is to say, I need to find some kind of literal string format with newline and supported by env command. For example:

env FOO=LITERAL_STRING ruby -e 'puts ENV["FOO"]' 

Here the LITERAL_STRING should contain a literal string with newline and env should understand that format.

With the above command, the expected output should be:

hello world 

I wonder if it is possible. I would appreciate for your help.