echo flags & options

Basic usage

Print text to stdout.

echo "Hello, world!"

-n

Don't output a trailing newline.

echo -n "Enter your name: "

-e

Enable interpretation of escape sequences.

echo -e "Line 1\nLine 2\nLine 3"

echo -e "Column1\tColumn2\tColumn3"

-E

Explicitly disable escape sequence interpretation (default behavior).

echo -E "No escapes: \n \t"

Common escape sequences

Newline, tab, backslash, and alert.

echo -e "Hello\nWorld"

echo -e "Name\tAge\tCity"

echo -e "Path: C:\\Users\\name"

Write to a file

echo "data" > file.txt

echo "more data" >> file.txt

Variable expansion

echo "Home directory: $HOME"

echo "Current shell: $SHELL"

Suppress with single quotes

Single quotes prevent variable expansion.

echo '$HOME is not expanded'