echo

Examples (TL;DR)

• Print a text message. Note: quotes are optional: echo "Hello World"
• Print a message with environment variables: echo "My path is $PATH"
• Print a message without the trailing newline: echo -n "Hello World"
• Append a message to the file: echo "Hello World" >> file.txt
• Enable interpretation of backslash escapes (special characters): echo -e "Column 1\tColumn 2"

tldr.sh

Synopsis

echo [SHORT-OPTION]... [STRING]...
echo LONG-OPTION

Description

Echo the STRING(s) to standard output.

-n

do not output the trailing newline

-e

enable interpretation of backslash escapes

-E

disable interpretation of backslash escapes (default)

--help

display this help and exit

--version

output version information and exit

If -e is in effect, the following sequences are recognized:

\\

backslash

\a

alert (BEL)

\b

backspace

\c

produce no further output

\e

escape

\f

form feed

\n

new line

\r

carriage return

\t

horizontal tab

\v

vertical tab

\0NNN

byte with octal value NNN (1 to 3 digits)

\xHH

byte with hexadecimal value HH (1 to 2 digits)

NOTE: your shell may have its own version of echo, which usually supersedes the version described here.  Please refer to your shell's documentation for details about the options it supports.

Author

Written by Brian Fox and Chet Ramey.

Reporting Bugs

GNU coreutils online help: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
Report any translation bugs to <https://translationproject.org/team/>

Copyright

Copyright © 2019 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

See Also

Full documentation <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/echo>
or available locally via: info '(coreutils) echo invocation'

Referenced By

cpuset(7), dash(1), ebuild(5), foomatic-rip(1), ii(1), ksh93(1), ldapcompare(1), libarchive-formats(5), mailx(1), mksh(1), nawk(1), picocom(1), shtool(1), shtool-echo(1), tcsh(1), xmessage(1), zshoptions(1).