Do manual do bash :
3.1.2.2 Single Quotes
Enclosing characters in single quotes (‘'’) preserves the literal value of each character within the quotes. A single quote may not occur between single quotes, even when preceded by a backslash.
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 ‘$’, ‘'’, ‘\’, and, when history expansion is enabled, ‘!’. The characters ‘$’ and ‘'’ retain their special meaning within double quotes (see 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).
Aqui estão algumas demonstrações práticas dos itens acima:
- As aspas duplas permitem avaliar expansões de parâmetros, mas aspas simples não:
$ var=foo
$ echo "$var"
foo
$ echo '$var'
$var
- As aspas duplas permitem a avaliação de escapes de barra invertida, mas as aspas simples não:
$ echo "\"
\
$ echo '\'
\
- As aspas duplas permitem a avaliação de substituições de comandos (
$(
,'
), mas aspas simples não:
$ echo "$(echo bar)"
bar
$ echo '$(echo bar)'
$(echo bar)