in reply to Re^4: passwords with special characters are trying to kill me... no seriously!
in thread passwords with special characters are trying to kill me... no seriously!

Then my best guess would be that echo $fred or even echo abc$xyz is being interpreted by the shell on the server and the '$...' bit is being substituted with the value of an enviroment variable of that name. Which probably doesn't exist, so it gets left blank.

But that is pure speculation on my part.

Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.
"Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority".
In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice.

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