Create single backslash in Ruby

Question

I would like to execute:

echo aA1.-_#*~^%\':\;?!@=/ | passwd --stdin user

It can be logged in with "aA1.-_#*~^%':;?!@=/".

I tried

str = "aA1.-_#*~^%':;?!@=/"
password = str.gsub("'", "\\\\'").gsub(";", "\\;")

passwd_command = "echo" +
  " #{password}" +
  " | passwd" +
  " --stdin user"

but the result was:

echo aA1.-_#*~^%\\':\\;?!@=/ | passwd --stdin aaa

I executed it:

[root@localhost ~]# echo aA1.-_#*~^%\\':\\;?!@=/ | passwd --stdin aaa
>

The command has not finished. Do you have any suggestions?

Answer 1

I don't know shellwords, but aren't the default Ruby methods sufficient? Like %q and %x?

See for example: https://simpleror.wordpress.com/2009/03/15/q-q-w-w-x-r-s/

Answer 2

I suggest Shellwords#escape because this is its purpose.

require 'shellwords'

Shellwords.escape("aA1.-_#*~^%':;?!@=/")
#=> "aA1.-_\\#\\*\\~\\^\\%\\':\\;\\?\\!@\\=/"