print hello to stdout echo hello
print hello without a trailing newline echo -n hello
print multiple words to stdout echo hello world
print the value of the EDITOR environment variable echo ${EDITOR}
ignore special characters using single quotes echo 'hello \ there?'
print without variable substitution echo 'print ${EDITOR} exactly'
Print a string to standard out, followed by a new line: echo
echo obeys shell quoting. Single quotes are strong quotes. They prevent all
characters from being interpreted as control characters and prevent variables
from being substituted. Double quotes allow variable and command substitution
but otherwise ignore control characters:
$ echo 'What is your pwd'
Your current directory is pwd
$ echo "Your current directory is pwd"
Your current directory is /Users/tyrion
In these examples, when the environment variable EDITOR is referenced it is
surrounded by curly braces: ${EDITOR}. In the examples shown above, $EDITOR
would accomplish the same thing. Since variable substitution is performed using
a mechanism like string search and replace, not using braces to refer to
variables can be more error prone. Curly braces are shown for robustness as in
general they should be preferred.
Print given arguments.
-
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"
No cheatsheet found for 'echo'.