# Question about backquotes and linux echo

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/question-about-backquotes-and-linux-echo/134352>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [April 10, 2008, 1:58am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/question-about-backquotes-and-linux-echo/134352 "2008-04-10T01:58:15Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![kuma](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/a587f6/32.png) [@kuma](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kuma)\
**Post date:** [April 10, 2008, 1:58am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/question-about-backquotes-and-linux-echo/134352/1 "2008-04-10T01:58:15Z")

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Hi all,

I can’t figure out why the following works from the command line but not  
from the backquotes:

echo -e “a\nb\naa” | grep a

This should produce:

a  
aa

However, when I execute:

puts `echo -e "a\\nb\\naa" | grep a`

I get:

-e “a\nb\naa”

Of course, this is a trivial example, but it represents my real problem  
well enough. Writing the text to a temp file and using ‘cat’ isn’t an  
option, unfortunately.

Thanks for any help,

Brian H.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![kuma](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/a587f6/32.png) [@kuma](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/kuma)\
**Post date:** [April 10, 2008, 2:09am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/question-about-backquotes-and-linux-echo/134352/2 "2008-04-10T02:09:21Z")

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Nevermind…it was a Cygwin problem. Works fine on RedHat.