The command takes any number of strings on the command line, and will process them individually, one after another. It will output them separated by spaces to stdout.

By default, this command will escape the strings passed, unless --unescape is passed which results in the inverse operation being applied. If --mangle is given, a special mode of escaping is applied instead, which assumes the string is already escaped but will escape everything that appears obviously non-escaped.

OPTIONS

The following options are understood:

--suffix=

Appends the specified unit type suffix to the escaped string. Takes one of the unit types supported by systemd, such as ".service" or ".mount". May not be used in conjunction with --template=, --unescape or --mangle.

--template=

Inserts the escaped strings in a unit name template. Takes a unit name template such as foobar@.service May not be used in conjunction with --suffix=, --unescape or --mangle.

--path, -p

When escaping or unescaping a string, assume it refers to a file system path. This enables special processing of the initial "/" of the path.

--unescape

Instead of escaping the specified strings, undo the escaping, reversing the operation. May not be used in conjunction with --suffix=, --template= or --mangle.

--mangle

Like --escape, but only escape characters that are obviously not escaped yet, and possibly automatically append an appropriate unit type suffix to the string. May not be used in conjunction with --suffix=, --template= or --unescape.

-h, --help

Print a short help text and exit.

--version

Print a short version string and exit.

EXAMPLES

Escape a single string:

$ systemd-escape 'Hallöchen, Meister'
Hall\xc3\xb6chen\x2c\x20Meister

To undo escaping on a single string:

$ systemd-escape -u 'Hall\xc3\xb6chen\x2c\x20Meister'
Hallöchen, Meister

To generate the mount unit for a path:

$ systemd-escape -p --suffix=mount "/tmp//waldi/foobar/"
tmp-waldi-foobar.mount

To generate instance names of three strings

$ systemd-escape --template=systemd-nspawn@.service 'My Container 1' 'containerb' 'container/III'
systemd-nspawn@My\x20Container\x201.service systemd-nspawn@containerb.service systemd-nspawn@container-III.service

EXIT STATUS

On success, 0 is returned, a non-zero failure code otherwise.

SEE ALSO

systemd(1), systemctl(1)