Re: Bug in md5sum

[Bob Proulx]

Chuck Messenger wrote:
> $ touch a\\\'s
> $ ls
> a\'s
> $ md5sum a\\\'s
> \d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e  a\\'s
> $ md5sum --version
> md5sum (coreutils) 5.2.1
> 
> In other words, an extraneous \ is inserted before the md5 in the 
> output, due to the fact that there's a backslash (or perhaps a \') in 
> the file name.

The behavior is intentional.  Please see this discussion:

  http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-coreutils/2005-04/msg00046.html

Bob