I am using Bash script to read line by line from a text file, which has special characters in it (regular expression). When I use echo "${SOME_VAR}" it does not display the text as is. I am familiar with Prevent * to be expanded in the bash script. How can I display and use the text as is? UPDATE The text (TSV) file holds tuples similar to (the last entry is a psql query) bathroom bathroom select name from photos where name ~* '\mbathroom((s)?|(''s)?)\M'; I am reading the CSV as follows: tail -n+2 text.file | while IFS=$'\t' read x y z do echo "${z}" done which gives the output select name from photos where name ~* 'mbathroom((s)?|(''s)?)M'); note that the '\' is missing