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3.1.2.4 ANSI-C Quoting

Words of the form $'string' are treated specially. The word expands to string, with backslash-escaped characters replaced as specified by the ANSI C standard. Backslash escape sequences, if present, are decoded as follows:

\a
alert (bell)
\b
backspace
\e
an escape character (not ANSI C)
\f
form feed
\n
newline
\r
carriage return
\t
horizontal tab
\v
vertical tab
\\
backslash
\'
single quote
\nnn
the eight-bit character whose value is the octal value nnn (one to three digits)
\xHH
the eight-bit character whose value is the hexadecimal value HH (one or two hex digits)
\cx
a control-x character

The expanded result is single-quoted, as if the dollar sign had not been present.