>> read -d '\0' -r -u 3 > You are missing the correct syntax to interpret backslash escapes here: > > read -d $'\0' -r -u 3 > > will work.
Thanks a lot!! I was indeed missing the $ sign! And it is nicely documented here: http://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/bashref.html#ANSI_002dC-Quoting I never doubted the syntax, because when I didn't provide a delimiter (in that case read uses a newline), still nothing but the username could be read, but there is no newline after the username... That made me think there was something else wrong. So it seems that read always stops reading at a nul character (and removing any other data) if it cannot find the provided or default delimiter. Durk
