Quoting

Each of the metacharacters listed above (See Definitions earlier in this appendix) has a special meaning to the Korn shell and causes termination of a word unless quoted. A character may be quoted (i.e., made to stand for itself) by preceding it with a . The pair new-line is ignored. All characters enclosed between a pair of single quote marks (''), are quoted. A single quote cannot appear within single quotes. Inside double quote marks (""), parameter and command substitution occurs and quotes the characters , `, " , and $. The meaning of $* and $@ is identical when not quoted or when used as a parameter assignment value or as a file name.

However, when used as a command argument, "$*" is equivalent to "$1d$2d..." , where d is the first character of the IFS parameter, whereas "$@" is equivalent to "$1" "$2" .... Inside grave quote marks (``) quotes the characters , `, and $. If the grave quotes occur within double quotes then also quotes the character ".

The special meaning of reserved words or aliases can be removed by quoting any character of the reserved word. The recognition of function names or special command names listed below cannot be altered by quoting them.