NAME
echo —
write arguments to the standard
output
SYNOPSIS
echo |
[-n] [string ...] |
DESCRIPTION
Theecho utility writes any specified operands,
separated by single blank (‘ ’)
characters and followed by a newline
(‘\n’) character, to the standard
output.
The following option is available:
-n- Do not print the trailing newline character.
The end-of-options marker
-- is not recognized and
written literally.
The newline may also be suppressed by appending
‘\c’ to the end of the string, as is
done by iBCS2 compatible systems. Note that the -n
option as well as the effect of ‘\c’
are implementation-defined in IEEE Std 1003.1-2001
(“POSIX.1”) as amended by Cor. 1-2002. For portability,
echo should only be used if the first argument does
not start with a hyphen (‘-’) and does
not contain any backslashes (‘\’). If
this is not sufficient,
printf(1) should be used.
Most shells provide a builtin echo command
which tends to differ from this utility in the treatment of options and
backslashes. Consult the
builtin(1) manual page.
EXIT STATUS
The echo utility exits 0 on
success, and >0 if an error occurs.
SEE ALSO
STANDARDS
The echo utility conforms to
IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 (“POSIX.1”) as
amended by Cor. 1-2002.
HISTORY
The echo command appeared in
Version 2 AT&T UNIX.