1.\"- 2.\" Copyright (c) 1990, 1993 3.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. 4.\" 5.\" This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by 6.\" the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. 7.\" 8.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 9.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions 10.\" are met: 11.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 12.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 13.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright 14.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the 15.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 16.\" 3. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors 17.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 18.\" without specific prior written permission. 19.\" 20.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 21.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 22.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 23.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 24.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 25.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 26.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 27.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 28.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 29.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 30.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 31.\" 32.Dd October 5, 2016 33.Dt ECHO 1 34.Os 35.Sh NAME 36.Nm echo 37.Nd write arguments to the standard output 38.Sh SYNOPSIS 39.Nm 40.Op Fl n 41.Op Ar string ... 42.Sh DESCRIPTION 43The 44.Nm 45utility writes any specified operands, separated by single blank 46.Pq Ql "\ " 47characters and followed by a newline 48.Pq Ql \en 49character, to the standard 50output. 51.Pp 52The following option is available: 53.Bl -tag -width flag 54.It Fl n 55Do not print the trailing newline character. 56.El 57.Pp 58The end-of-options marker 59.Fl Fl 60is not recognized and written literally. 61.Pp 62The newline may also be suppressed by appending 63.Ql \ec 64to the end of the string, as is done 65by iBCS2 compatible systems. 66Note that the 67.Fl n 68option as well as the effect of 69.Ql \ec 70are implementation-defined in 71.St -p1003.1-2001 72as amended by Cor.\& 1-2002. 73For portability, 74.Nm 75should only be used if the first argument does not start with a hyphen 76.Pq Ql "-" 77and does not contain any backslashes 78.Pq Ql "\e" . 79If this is not sufficient, 80.Xr printf 1 81should be used. 82.Pp 83Most shells provide a builtin 84.Nm 85command which tends to differ from this utility 86in the treatment of options and backslashes. 87Consult the 88.Xr builtin 1 89manual page. 90.Sh EXIT STATUS 91.Ex -std 92.Sh EXAMPLES 93Special treatment of options and backslashes: 94.Bd -literal -offset indent 95$ /bin/echo "-hello\\tworld" 96-hello\tworld 97.Ed 98.Pp 99Avoid new line character: 100.Bd -literal -offset indent 101$ /bin/echo -n hello;/bin/echo world 102helloworld 103.Ed 104.Pp 105Or to achieve the same result: 106.Bd -literal -offset indent 107$ /bin/echo "hello\\c";/bin/echo world 108helloworld 109.Ed 110.Sh SEE ALSO 111.Xr builtin 1 , 112.Xr csh 1 , 113.Xr printf 1 , 114.Xr sh 1 115.Sh STANDARDS 116The 117.Nm 118utility conforms to 119.St -p1003.1-2001 120as amended by Cor.\& 1-2002. 121.Sh HISTORY 122The 123.Nm 124command appeared in 125.At v2 . 126.Sh CAVEATS 127The 128.Nm 129command behaves differently with regards to the built-in 130.Nm 131shell command in a number of ways including escaped characters handling. 132It also differs in behavior between different systems hence complicating writing 133portable scripts. 134It is advised to use the 135.Xr printf 1 136command to avoid these shortcomings. 137