Deeply nesting commands - bash

To escape characters in bash, Why the syntax is confusing when nesting commands deeply?, I know that there is an alternate approach with $() to nest commands, Just curious, why it is as such when nesting commands using backticks!
For example:
echo `echo \`echo \\\`echo inside\\\`\``
Gives output: inside
But
echo `echo \`echo \\`echo inside\\`\``
Fails with,
bash: command substitution: line 1: unexpected EOF while looking for matching ``'
bash: command substitution: line 2: syntax error: unexpected end of file
bash: command substitution: line 1: unexpected EOF while looking for matching ``'
bash: command substitution: line 2: syntax error: unexpected end of file
echo inside\
My question is that why the number of backslashes required for second level nesting is 3 and why it is not 2. In the above example given, one backslash is used for one level deep and three are used for second-level nesting commands to preserve the literal meaning of the backtick.

The basic problem is that there's no distinction between an open-backtick and a close-backtick. So if the shell sees something like this:
somecommand ` something1 ` something2 ` something3 `
...there's no intrinsic way to tell if that's two separate backticked commands (something1 and something3), with a literal string ("something2") in between; or a nested backtick expression, with something2 being run first and its output passed to something1 as an argument (along with the literal string "something3"). In order to avoid ambiguity, the shell syntax picks the first interpretation, and requires that if you want the second interpretation you need to escape the inner level of backticks:
somecommand ` something1 ` something2 ` something3 ` # Two separate expansions
somecommand ` something1 \` something2 \` something3 ` # Nested expansions
And that means adding another level of parsing-and-removing escapes, which means you need to escape any escapes you didn't want parsed at that point, and the whole thing gets quickly out of hand.
The $( ) syntax, on the other hand, is not ambiguous, because the opening and closing markers are not the same. Compare the two possibilities:
somecommand $( something1 ) something2 $( something3 ) # Two separate expansions
somecommand $( something1 $( something2 ) something3 ) # Nested expansions
There's no ambiguity there, so no need for escapes or other syntactic weirdness.
The reason the number of escapes grows so fast with the number of levels is again to avoid ambiguity. And it's not something specific to command expansions with backticks; this escape inflation shows up anytime you have a string going through multiple levels of parsing, each of which applies (and removes) escapes.
Suppose the shell runs across two escapes and a backtick (\\`) as it parses a line. Should it parse that as a doubly-escaped backtick, or a singly-escaped escape (backslash) character followed by a not-escaped-at-all backtick? If it runs across three escapes and a backtick (\\\`), is that a triply-escaped backtick, a doubly-escaped escape followed a not-escaped-at-all backtick, or a singly-escaped escape followed by a singly-escaped backtick?
The shell (like most things that deal with escapes) avoids the ambiguity by not treating stacked escapes as a special thing. When it runs into an escape character, that applies only to the thing immediately after it; if the thing immediately after it is another escape, then it escapes that one character and has no effect on whatever's after it. Thus \\` is an escaped escape, followed by a not-escaped-at-all backtick. That means you can't just add another escape to the front, you have to add an escape in front of each and every escape-worthy character in the string (including escapes from lower levels).
So, let's start with a simple backtick, and work through escaping it to various levels:
First level is easy, just escape it: \'.
For the second level, we have to escape that escape (\\) and then separately escape the backtick itself (\`), giving a total of three backticks: \\\`.
For the third level, we have to individually escape each of those three escapes (so 3x\\) and once again escape the backtick itself (\`), giving a total of seven backticks: \\\\\\\`.
It continues like that, more than doubling the number of escapes for each level. From 7 it goes to 15, then 31, then 63, then... There's a good reason people try to avoid situations with deeply nested escapes.
Oh, and as I mentioned, the shell isn't the only thing that does this, and that can complicate matters because different levels can have different escaping syntaxes, and some things may not need escaping at some of the levels. For example, suppose the thing being escaped is the regular expression \s. To add a level to that, you'd only need one additional escape (\\s) because the "s" doesn't need to be escaped by itself. Additional levels of escaping on that would give 4, 8, 16, 32 etc escapes.
TLDR; Yo, dawg, I heard you like escapes...
P.s. You can use the shell's -v option to make it print commands before executing them. With nested commands like this, it'll print each of the commands as it un-nests them, so you can watch the stack escaped escapes collapse as the layers get stripped off:
$ set -v
$ echo "this is `echo "a literal \`echo "backtick: \\\\\\\`" \`" `"
echo "this is `echo "a literal \`echo "backtick: \\\\\\\`" \`" `"
echo "a literal `echo "backtick: \\\`" `"
echo "backtick: \`"
this is a literal backtick: `
(For even more fun, try this after set -vx -- the -x option will print the commands after parsing, so after you see it drill into the nested commands, you'll then see what happens as it unwinds back out to the final top-level command.)

There is nothing confusing per se in the syntax that you have shown. You just need to breakdown each of the levels one by one.
The GNU bash man page says
When the old-style backquote form of substitution is used, backslash retains its literal meaning except when followed by $, `, or \.
Command substitutions may be nested. To nest when using the backquoted form, escape the inner backquotes with backslashes.
So with that in context, the nested substitution has one \ to escape the back-quote and one more to escape the escape character (now read the above quote that \ loses its special meaning except when followed by another \). So that's the reason the second level of escaping needs two additional backslashes to escape the original character
echo `echo \`echo \\\`echo inside\\\`\``
# ^^^^ ^^^^
becomes
echo `echo \`echo inside\``
# ^^ ^^
which in turn becomes
echo `echo inside`
# ^ ^
which eventually becomes
echo inside

Related

Behavior of echo with many backslashes

I have a project with the goal of implementing the same behavior as the echo command. My problem is with backslashes. My information says that when a backslash appears you must considering the next character as a simple character, but here I guess it's not the same.
This an example :
echo \\\\
OUTPUT : \
The problem here is that I expect that the output to be 2 backslashes, not just one.
To get 2 backslashes I need to write 6 backslashes:
echo \\\\\\
Can anyone help me to understand this behavior?
There are multiple layers where the backslashes are interpreted. It is an escape character in the shell(among other places). A backslash followed by a character is an escape code for another character(for instance, \n is interpreted as a line break).
When you first execute echo \\\\\\, the shell parses the escape sequences and ends up passing \\\ to the command(in this case echo).
Quoting the string on the shell will prevent interpretation there(i.e. echo "\\" will literally pass two backslashes to the echo command). You also either have an additional layer of interpretation or your program is incorrectly handling the backslash sequence. Ultimately, you'll need to escape it for each layer.

Trouble understanding the non-obvious use of backslash inside of backticks

I have read a ton of pages including the bash manual, but still find the "non-obvious" use of backslashes confusing.
If I do:
echo \*
it prints a single asterisks, this is normal as I am escaping the asterisks making it literal.
If I do:
echo \\*
it prints \*
This also seems normal, the first backslash escapes the second.
If I do
echo `echo \\*`
It prints the contents of the directory. But in my mind it should print the same as echo \\* because when that is substituted and passed to echo. I understand this is the non-obvious use of backslashes everyone talks about, but I am struggling to understand WHY it happens.
Also the bash manual says
When the old-style backquote form of substitution is used, backslash retains its literal meaning except when followed by ‘$’, ‘`’, or ‘\’.
But it doesn't define what the "literal meaning on backslash" is. Is it as an escape character, a continuation character, or just literally a backslash character?
Also, it says it retain it's literal meaning, except when followed by ... So when it's followed by one of those three characters what does it do? Does it only escape those three characters?
This is mostly for historical interest since `...` command substitution has been superseded by the cleaner $(...) form. No new script should ever use backticks.
Here's how you evaluate a $(command) substitution
Run the command
Here's how you evaluate a `string` command substitution:
Determine the span of the string, from the opening backtick to the closing unescaped backtick (behavior is undefined if this backtick is inside a string literal: the shell will typically either treat it as literal backtick or as a closing backtick depending on its parser implementation)
Unescape the string by removing backslashes that come before one of the three characters dollar, backtick or backslash. This following character is then inserted literally into the command. A backslash followed by any other character will be left alone.
E.g. Hello\\ World will become Hello\ World, because the \\ is replaced with \
Hello\ World will also become Hello\ World, because the backslash is followed by a character other than one of those three, and therefore retains its literal meaning of just being a backslash
\\\* will become \\* since the \\ will become just \ (since backslash is one of the three), and the \* will remain \* (since asterisk is not)
Evaluate the result as a shell command (this includes following all regular shell escaping rules on the result of the now-unescaped command string)
So to evaluate echo `echo \\*`:
Determine the span of the string, here echo \\*
Unescape it according to the backtick quoting rules: echo \*
Evaluate it as a command, which runs echo to output a literal *
Since the result of the substitution is unquoted, the output will undergo:
Word splitting: * becomes * (since it's just one word)
Pathname expansion on each of the words, so * becomes bin Desktop Downloads Photos public_html according to files in the current directory
Note in particular that this was not the same as replacing the the backtick command with the output and rerunning the result. For example, we did not consider escapes, quotes and expansions in the output, which a simple text based macro expansion would have.
Pass each of these as arguments to the next command (also echo): echo bin Desktop Downloads Photos public_html
The result is a list of files in the current directory.

bash print words on multiple lines in a single line

I am writing a shell script for which I write a header that has 30 (growing) column names. Right now, I have a echo statement that works and looks like this
echo "Colum_Name1, Column_Name2,Column_Name30"
While this works the readability sucks for me. if i want to add a column, its a bit of a nightmare to look at the screen and understand whether it is already in there. of course, I search my way out. Is it possible to do something like this with echo or printf and get the CSV in one line?
echo " Column_Name1,
Column_Name2,
Column_Name30"
and get the output as
Column_Name1,Column_Name2,Column_Name30
You can add backslash as the line continuation:
echo " Column_Name1,"\
"Column_Name2,"\
"Column_Name30"
From the bash manual:
The backslash character ‘\’ may be used to remove any special meaning
for the next character read and for line continuation.
Decouple the definition of the header and printing it, and use an array to store the column names.
headers=(
Column_Name1
Column_Name2
Column_Name30
)
(IFS=","; printf '%s\n' "${headers[*]}")
The elements of the array are joined by the first character of IFS when ${headers[*]} is expanded. The subshell is used so you don't have to worry about restoring the previous value of IFS.
Convenience solution, using paste:
If you don't mind the (probably negligible) overhead of invoking an external utility (paste) to build your string, you can combine it with a (literal, in this case) here-doc:
paste -s -d, - <<'EOF'
Column_Name1
Column_Name2
Column_Name30
EOF
yields
Column_Name1,Column_Name2,Column_Name30
The above acts like a single-quoted string, due to the opening delimiter, 'EOF', being quoted.
Omit the enclosing '...' to treat the string like a double-quoted string, i.e., with expansions being performed (allowing the inclusion of variable references, command substitutions, and arithmetic expansions).
If you take care to use actual leading tabs (\t) in your here-doc (multiple spaces do not work), you can even introduce indentation, by prepending - to the opening delimiter:
# !! Only works with actual *tabs* as the leading whitespace.
paste -s -d, - <<-'EOF'
Column_Name1
Column_Name2
Column_Name30
EOF
More efficient solution, using line continuation:
POSIX-compatible shells support line continuation even inside double-quoted strings, "..." (but not inside single-quoted ones, '...').
That means that any \<newline> sequence inside a double-quoted string is removed:
echo "\
Column_Name1,\
Column_Name2,\
Column_Name3\
"
Given that a here-document with an unquoted opening delimiter is treated like a double-quoted string, you can do the following:
cat <<EOF
Column_Name1,\
Column_Name2,\
Column_Name30
EOF
Note:
Using <<-EOF with to-be-stripped leading tabs (\t) for readability is not an option here, because the line continuations will still include them.
To take advantage of line continuation, it is invariably the interpolating (expanding) here-doc variety that must be used; therefore, you may need to \-escape $ instances to ensure their literal use.
Both commands again yield the desired single-line string:
Column_Name1,Column_Name2,Column_Name30
echo "foo bar" | (IFS=" "; xargs -n 1 echo)
yields
foo
bar

bash variable expansion ${var:+"..."} in here-document removing double quotes?

I'm trying to understand why Bash removes double quotes (but not single quotes) when doing variable expansion with ${parameter:+word} (Use Alternate Value), in a here-document, for example:
% var=1
% cat <<EOF
> ${var:+"Hi there"}
> ${var:+'Bye'}
> EOF
Hi there
'Bye'
According to the manual, the "word" after :+ is processed with tilde expansion, parameter expansion, command substitution, and arithmetic expansion. None of these should do anything.
What am I missing? How can I get double quotes in the expansion?
tl;dr
$ var=1; cat <<EOF
"${var:+Hi there}"
${var:+$(printf %s '"Hi there"')}
EOF
"Hi there"
"Hi there"
The above demonstrates two pragmatic workarounds to include double quotes in the alternative value.
The embedded $(...) approach is more cumbersome, but more flexible: it allows inclusion of embedded double quotes and also gives you control over whether the value should be expanded or not.
Jens' helpful answer and Patryk Obara's helpful answer both shed light on and further demonstrate the problem.
Note that the problematic behavior equally applies to:
(as noted in the other answers) regular double-quoted strings (e.g., echo "${var:+"Hi there"}"; for the 1st workaround, you'd have to \-quote surrounding " instances; e.g., echo "\"${var:+Hi there}\""; curiously, as Gunstick points out in a comment on the question, using \" in the alternative value to produce " in the output does work in double-quoted strings - e.g., echo "${var:+\"Hi th\"ere\"}" - unlike in unquoted here-docs.)
related expansions ${var+...}, ${var-...} / ${var:-...}, and ${var=...} / ${var:=...}
Also, there's a related oddity with respect to \-handling inside double-quoted alternative values inside a double-quoted string / unquoted here-doc: bash and ksh unexpectedly remove embedded \ instances; e.g.,
echo "${nosuch:-"a\b"}" unexpectedly yields ab, even though echo "a\b" in isolation yields a\b - see this question.
I have no explanation for the behavior[1]
, but I can offer pragmatic solutions that work with all major POSIX-compatible shells (dash, bash, ksh, zsh):
Note that " instances are never needed for syntactic reasons inside the alternative value: The alternative value is implicitly treated like a double-quoted string: no tilde expansion, no word-splitting, and no globbing take place, but parameter expansions, arithmetic expansions and command substitutions are performed.
Note that in parameter expansions involving substitution or prefix/suffix-removal, quotes do have syntactic meaning; e.g.: echo "${BASH#*"bin"}" or echo "${BASH#*'bin'}" - curiously, dash doesn't support single quotes, though.
If you want to surround the entire alternative value with quotes, and it has no embedded quotes and you want it expanded,
quote the entire expansion, which bypasses the problem of " removal from the alternative value:
# Double quotes
$ var=1; cat <<EOF
"${var:+The closest * is far from $HOME}"
EOF
"The closest * is far from /Users/jdoe"
# Single quotes - but note that the alternative value is STILL EXPANDED,
# because of the overall context of the unquoted here-doc.
var=1; cat <<EOF
'${var:+The closest * is far from $HOME}'
EOF
'The closest * is far from /Users/jdoe'
For embedded quotes, or to prevent expansion of the alternative value,
use an embedded command substitution (unquoted, although it'll behave as if it were quoted):
# Expanded value with embedded quotes.
var=1; cat <<EOF
${var:+$(printf %s "We got 3\" of snow at $HOME")}
EOF
We got 3" of snow at /Users/jdoe
# Literal value with embedded quotes.
var=1; cat <<EOF
${var:+$(printf %s 'We got 3" of snow at $HOME')}
EOF
We got 3" of snow at $HOME
These two approaches can be combined as needed.
[1]
In effect, the alternative value:
behaves like an implicitly double-quoted string,
' instances, as in regular double-quoted strings, are treated as literals.
Given the above,
it would make sense to treat embedded " instances as literals too, and simply pass them through, just like the ' instances.
Instead, sadly, they are removed, and if you try to escape them as \", the \ is retained too (inside unquoted here-documents, but curiously not inside double-quoted strings), except in ksh - the laudable exception -, where the \ instances are removed. In zsh, curiously, trying to use \" breaks the expansion altogether (as do unbalanced unescaped ones in all shells).
More specifically, the double quotes have no syntactic function in the alternative value, but they are parsed as if they did: quote removal is applied, and you can't use (unbalanced) " instances in the interior without \"-escaping them (which, as stated, is useless, because the \ instances are retained).
Given the implicit double-quoted-string semantics, literal $ instances must either be \$-escaped, or a command substitution must be used to embed a single-quoted string ($(printf %s '...')).
The behavior looks deliberate--it is consistent across all Bourne shells I tried (e.g. ksh93 and zsh behave the same way).
The behavior is equivalent to treating the here-doc as double-quoted for these special expansions only. In other words, you get the same result for
$ echo "${var:+"hi there"}"
hi there
$ echo "${var:+'Bye'}"
'Bye'
There is only a very faint hint in the POSIX spec I found that something special happens for double quoted words in parameter expansions. This is from the informative "Examples" section of Parameter Expansion:
The double-quoting of patterns is different depending on where the double-quotes are placed.
"${x#*}"
The <asterisk> is a pattern character.
${x#"*"}
The literal <asterisk> is quoted and not special.
I would read the last line as suggesting that quote removal for double quotes applies to the word. This example would not make sense for single quotes, and by omission, there's no quote removal for single quotes.
Update
I tried the FreeBSD /bin/sh, which is derived from an Almquist Shell. This shell outputs single and double quotes. So the behavior is no longer consistent across all shells, only across most shells I tried.
As for getting double quotes in the expansion of the word after :+, my take is
$ var=1
$ q='"'
$ cat <<EOF
${var:+${q}hi there$q}
EOF
"hi there"
$ cat <<EOF
${var:+bare alt value is string already}
${var:+'and these are quotes within string'}
${var:+"these are double quotes within string"}
${var:+"which are removed during substitution"}
"${var:+but you can simply not substitute them away ;)}"
EOF
bare alt value is string already
'and these are quotes within string'
these are double quotes within string
which are removed during substitution
"but you can simply not substitute them away ;)"
Note, that here-document is not needed to reproduce this:
$ echo "${var:+'foo'}"
'foo'

What is the benefit of using $() instead of backticks in shell scripts? [duplicate]

This question already has answers here:
What is the difference between $(command) and `command` in shell programming?
(6 answers)
Closed last year.
There are two ways to capture the output of command line in bash:
Legacy Bourne shell backticks ``:
var=`command`
$() syntax (which as far as I know is Bash specific, or at least not supported by non-POSIX old shells like original Bourne)
var=$(command)
Is there any benefit to using the second syntax compared to backticks? Or are the two fully 100% equivalent?
The major one is the ability to nest them, commands within commands, without losing your sanity trying to figure out if some form of escaping will work on the backticks.
An example, though somewhat contrived:
deps=$(find /dir -name $(ls -1tr 201112[0-9][0-9]*.txt | tail -1l) -print)
which will give you a list of all files in the /dir directory tree which have the same name as the earliest dated text file from December 2011 (a).
Another example would be something like getting the name (not the full path) of the parent directory:
pax> cd /home/pax/xyzzy/plugh
pax> parent=$(basename $(dirname $PWD))
pax> echo $parent
xyzzy
(a) Now that specific command may not actually work, I haven't tested the functionality. So, if you vote me down for it, you've lost sight of the intent :-) It's meant just as an illustration as to how you can nest, not as a bug-free production-ready snippet.
Suppose you want to find the lib directory corresponding to where gcc is installed. You have a choice:
libdir=$(dirname $(dirname $(which gcc)))/lib
libdir=`dirname \`dirname \\\`which gcc\\\`\``/lib
The first is easier than the second - use the first.
The backticks (`...`) is the legacy syntax required by only the very oldest of non-POSIX-compatible bourne-shells and $(...) is POSIX and more preferred for several reasons:
Backslashes (\) inside backticks are handled in a non-obvious manner:
$ echo "`echo \\a`" "$(echo \\a)"
a \a
$ echo "`echo \\\\a`" "$(echo \\\\a)"
\a \\a
# Note that this is true for *single quotes* too!
$ foo=`echo '\\'`; bar=$(echo '\\'); echo "foo is $foo, bar is $bar"
foo is \, bar is \\
Nested quoting inside $() is far more convenient:
echo "x is $(sed ... <<<"$y")"
instead of:
echo "x is `sed ... <<<\"$y\"`"
or writing something like:
IPs_inna_string=`awk "/\`cat /etc/myname\`/"'{print $1}' /etc/hosts`
because $() uses an entirely new context for quoting
which is not portable as Bourne and Korn shells would require these backslashes, while Bash and dash don't.
Syntax for nesting command substitutions is easier:
x=$(grep "$(dirname "$path")" file)
than:
x=`grep "\`dirname \"$path\"\`" file`
because $() enforces an entirely new context for quoting, so each command substitution is protected and can be treated on its own without special concern over quoting and escaping. When using backticks, it gets uglier and uglier after two and above levels.
Few more examples:
echo `echo `ls`` # INCORRECT
echo `echo \`ls\`` # CORRECT
echo $(echo $(ls)) # CORRECT
It solves a problem of inconsistent behavior when using backquotes:
echo '\$x' outputs \$x
echo `echo '\$x'` outputs $x
echo $(echo '\$x') outputs \$x
Backticks syntax has historical restrictions on the contents of the embedded command and cannot handle some valid scripts that include backquotes, while the newer $() form can process any kind of valid embedded script.
For example, these otherwise valid embedded scripts do not work in the left column, but do work on the rightIEEE:
echo ` echo $(
cat <<\eof cat <<\eof
a here-doc with ` a here-doc with )
eof eof
` )
echo ` echo $(
echo abc # a comment with ` echo abc # a comment with )
` )
echo ` echo $(
echo '`' echo ')'
` )
Therefore the syntax for $-prefixed command substitution should be the preferred method, because it is visually clear with clean syntax (improves human and machine readability), it is nestable and intuitive, its inner parsing is separate, and it is also more consistent (with all other expansions that are parsed from within double-quotes) where backticks are the only exception and ` character is easily camouflaged when adjacent to " making it even more difficult to read, especially with small or unusual fonts.
Source: Why is $(...) preferred over `...` (backticks)? at BashFAQ
See also:
POSIX standard section "2.6.3 Command Substitution"
POSIX rationale for including the $() syntax
Command Substitution
bash-hackers: command substitution
From man bash:
$(command)
or
`command`
Bash performs the expansion by executing command and replacing the com-
mand substitution with the standard output of the command, with any
trailing newlines deleted. Embedded newlines are not deleted, but they
may be removed during word splitting. The command substitution $(cat
file) can be replaced by the equivalent but faster $(< file).
When the old-style backquote form of substitution is used, backslash
retains its literal meaning except when followed by $, `, or \. The
first backquote not preceded by a backslash terminates the command sub-
stitution. When using the $(command) form, all characters between the
parentheses make up the command; none are treated specially.
In addition to the other answers,
$(...)
stands out visually better than
`...`
Backticks look too much like apostrophes; this varies depending on the font you're using.
(And, as I just noticed, backticks are a lot harder to enter in inline code samples.)
$() allows nesting.
out=$(echo today is $(date))
I think backticks does not allow it.
It is the POSIX standard that defines the $(command) form of command substitution. Most shells in use today are POSIX compliant and support this preferred form over the archaic backtick notation. The command substitution section (2.6.3) of the Shell Language document describes this:
Command substitution allows the output of a command to be substituted in place of the command name itself.  Command substitution shall occur when the command is enclosed as follows:
$(command)
or (backquoted version):
`command`
The shell shall expand the command substitution by executing command
in a subshell environment (see Shell Execution Environment) and
replacing the command substitution (the text of command plus the
enclosing "$()" or backquotes) with the standard output of the
command, removing sequences of one or more <newline> characters at the
end of the substitution. Embedded <newline> characters before the end
of the output shall not be removed; however, they may be treated as
field delimiters and eliminated during field splitting, depending on
the value of IFS and quoting that is in effect. If the output contains
any null bytes, the behavior is unspecified.
Within the backquoted style of command substitution, <backslash> shall
retain its literal meaning, except when followed by: '$' , '`', or
<backslash>. The search for the matching backquote shall be satisfied
by the first unquoted non-escaped backquote; during this search, if a
non-escaped backquote is encountered within a shell comment, a
here-document, an embedded command substitution of the $(command)
form, or a quoted string, undefined results occur. A single-quoted or
double-quoted string that begins, but does not end, within the "`...`"
sequence produces undefined results.
With the $(command) form, all characters following the open
parenthesis to the matching closing parenthesis constitute the
command. Any valid shell script can be used for command, except a
script consisting solely of redirections which produces unspecified
results.
The results of command substitution shall not be processed for further
tilde expansion, parameter expansion, command substitution, or
arithmetic expansion. If a command substitution occurs inside
double-quotes, field splitting and pathname expansion shall not be
performed on the results of the substitution.
Command substitution can be nested. To specify nesting within the
backquoted version, the application shall precede the inner backquotes
with <backslash> characters; for example:
\`command\`
The syntax of the shell command language has an ambiguity for expansions beginning with "$((",
which can introduce an arithmetic expansion or a command substitution that starts with a subshell.
Arithmetic expansion has precedence; that is, the shell shall first determine
whether it can parse the expansion as an arithmetic expansion
and shall only parse the expansion as a command substitution
if it determines that it cannot parse the expansion as an arithmetic expansion.
The shell need not evaluate nested expansions when performing this determination.
If it encounters the end of input without already having determined
that it cannot parse the expansion as an arithmetic expansion,
the shell shall treat the expansion as an incomplete arithmetic expansion and report a syntax error.
A conforming application shall ensure that it separates the "$(" and '(' into two tokens
(that is, separate them with white space) in a command substitution that starts with a subshell.
For example, a command substitution containing a single subshell could be written as:
$( (command) )
I came up with a perfectly valid example of $(...) over `...`.
I was using a remote desktop to Windows running Cygwin and wanted to iterate over a result of a command. Sadly, the backtick character was impossible to enter, either due to the remote desktop thing or Cygwin itself.
It's sane to assume that a dollar sign and parentheses will be easier to type in such strange setups.
Here in 2021 it is worth mentioning a curious fact as a supplement to the other answers.
The Microsoft DevOps YAML "scripting" for pipelines may include Bash tasks. However, the notation $() is used for referring to variables defined in the YAML context, so in this case backticks should be used for capturing the output of commands.
This is mostly a problem when copying scripting code into a YAML script since the DevOps preprocessor is very forgiving about nonexisting variables, so there will not be any error message.

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