# Double Quotes (Bash Reference Manual)

## 3.1.2.3 Double Quotes

Enclosing characters in double quotes (‘"’) preserves the literal value of all characters within the quotes, with the exception of ‘$’, ‘\`’, ‘\’, and, when history expansion is enabled, ‘!’. When the shell is in POSIX mode (see [Bash POSIX Mode](../bash-posix-mode-bash-reference-manual#Bash-POSIX-Mode)), the ‘!’ has no special meaning within double quotes, even when history expansion is enabled. The characters ‘$’ and ‘\`’ retain their special meaning within double quotes (see [Shell Expansions](../shell-expansions-bash-reference-manual#Shell-Expansions)). The backslash retains its special meaning only when followed by one of the following characters: ‘$’, ‘\`’, ‘"’, ‘\’, or `newline`. Within double quotes, backslashes that are followed by one of these characters are removed. Backslashes preceding characters without a special meaning are left unmodified. A double quote may be quoted within double quotes by preceding it with a backslash. If enabled, history expansion will be performed unless an ‘!’ appearing in double quotes is escaped using a backslash. The backslash preceding the ‘!’ is not removed.

The special parameters ‘\*’ and ‘@’ have special meaning when in double quotes (see [Shell Parameter Expansion](../shell-parameter-expansion-bash-reference-manual#Shell-Parameter-Expansion)).
