question: private static String escapeNewlines ( String string ) { return string . replace ( "\n" , "\\\\n" ) ; }
target:  The newlines in the external file need to be replaced by "\\n"s so that: a) it remains a one-liner in the /etc/systool --getprops output b) when _get_prop2 is called in /etc/genconfig, they can be converted back to actual newlines. The reason we must use "\\n" instead of "\n" here is that _get_props2 references ${_GENCONFIG_PROPS} without the double quotes