Man page 1 : debconf-escape

debconf-escape - helper when working with debconf's escape capability

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

When debconf has the 'escape' capability set, it will expect commands you send it to have backslashes and newlines escaped (as \f(CW\*(C`\\\*(C'\fR and \f(CW\*(C`\n\*(C'\fR respectively) and will in turn escape backslashes and newlines in its replies. This can be used, for example, to substitute multi-line strings into templates, or to get multi-line extended descriptions reliably using \f(CW\*(C`METAGET\*(C'\fR.

debconf-devel (7) (available in the debconf-doc package)

Colin Watson <>