1echo(1) User Commands echo(1)
2
6 echo - echo arguments
7
9 /usr/bin/echo [string]...
10
13 The echo utility writes its arguments, separated by BLANKs and termi‐
14 nated by a NEWLINE, to the standard output. If there are no arguments,
15 only the NEWLINE character is written.
16 echo is useful for producing diagnostics in command files, for sending
19 known data into a pipe, and for displaying the contents of environment
20 variables.
21 The C shell, the Korn shell, and the Bourne shell all have echo built-
24 in commands, which, by default, is invoked if the user calls echo with‐
25 out a full pathname. See shell_builtins(1). sh's echo, ksh's echo,
26 ksh93's echo, and /usr/bin/echo understand the back-slashed escape
27 characters, except that sh's echo does not understand \a as the alert
28 character. In addition, ksh's and ksh93's echo does not have an -n
29 option. sh's echo and /usr/bin/echo have an -n option if the SYSV3
30 environment variable is set (see ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES below). csh's
31 echo and /usr/ucb/echo, on the other hand, have an -n option, but do
32 not understand the back-slashed escape characters. sh and ksh determine
33 whether /usr/ucb/echo is found first in the PATH and, if so, they adapt
34 the behavior of the echo builtin to match /usr/ucb/echo.
35
37 The following operand is supported:
38 string A string to be written to standard output. If any operand is
40 "-n", it is treated as a string, not an option. The following
41 character sequences is recognized within any of the argu‐
42 ments:
43 \a Alert character.
45 \b Backspace.
48 \c Print line without new-line. All characters following
51 the \c in the argument are ignored.
52 \f Form-feed.
55 \n New-line.
58 \r Carriage return.
61 \t Tab.
64 \v Vertical tab.
67 \\ Backslash.
70 \0n Where n is the 8-bit character whose ASCII code is
73 the 1-, 2- or 3-digit octal number representing that
74 character.
75
79 Portable applications should not use -n (as the first argument) or
80 escape sequences.
81 The printf(1) utility can be used portably to emulate any of the tradi‐
84 tional behaviors of the echo utility as follows:
85 o The Solaris 2.6 operating environment or compatible ver‐
87 sion's /usr/bin/echo is equivalent to:
88 printf "%b\n" "$*"
90 o The /usr/ucb/echo is equivalent to:
94 if [ "X$1" = "X-n" ]
96 then
98 shift
100 printf "%s" "$*"
102 else
104 printf "%s\n" "$*"
106 fi
108 New applications are encouraged to use printf instead of echo.
112
114 Example 1 Finding how far below root your current directory is located
115 You can use echo to determine how many subdirectories below the root
118 directory (/) is your current directory, as follows:
119 o Echo your current-working-directory's full pathname.
122 o Pipe the output through tr to translate the path's embedded
124 slash-characters into space-characters.
125 o Pipe that output through wc -w for a count of the names in
127 your path.
128 example% /usr/bin/echo $PWD | tr '/' ' ' | wc -w
130 See tr(1) and wc(1) for their functionality.
135 Below are the different flavors for echoing a string without a NEWLINE:
139 Example 2 /usr/bin/echo
141 example% /usr/bin/echo "$USER's current directory is $PWD\c"
143 Example 3 sh/ksh shells
147 example$ echo "$USER's current directory is $PWD\c"
149 Example 4 csh shell
153 example% echo -n "$USER's current directory is $PWD"
155 Example 5 /usr/ucb/echo
159 example% /usr/ucb/echo -n "$USER's current directory is $PWD"
161
165 See environ(5) for descriptions of the following environment variables
166 that affect the execution of echo: LANG, LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, LC_MESSAGES,
167 and NLSPATH.
168 SYSV3 This environment variable is used to provide compatibility
170 with INTERACTIVE UNIX System and SCO UNIX installation
171 scripts. It is intended for compatibility only and should not
172 be used in new scripts. This variable is applicable only for
173 Solaris x86 platforms, not Solaris SPARC systems.
174
177 The following error values are returned:
178 0 Successful completion.
180 >0 An error occurred.
183
186 See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
187 ┌─────────────────────────────┬─────────────────────────────┐
192 │ ATTRIBUTE TYPE │ ATTRIBUTE VALUE │
193 ├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
194 │Availability │SUNWcsu │
195 ├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
196 │CSI │Enabled │
197 ├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
198 │Interface Stability │Committed │
199 ├─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┤
200 │Standard │See standards(5). │
201 └─────────────────────────────┴─────────────────────────────┘
202
204 ksh93(1), printf(1), shell_builtins(1), tr(1), wc(1), echo(1B),
205 ascii(5), attributes(5), environ(5), standards(5)
206
208 When representing an 8-bit character by using the escape convention
209 \0n, the n must always be preceded by the digit zero (0).
210 For example, typing: echo 'WARNING:\07' prints the phrase WARNING: and
213 sounds the "bell" on your terminal. The use of single (or double)
214 quotes (or two backslashes) is required to protect the "\" that pre‐
215 cedes the "07".
216 Following the \0, up to three digits are used in constructing the octal
219 output character. If, following the \0n, you want to echo additional
220 digits that are not part of the octal representation, you must use the
221 full 3-digit n. For example, if you want to echo "ESC 7" you must use
222 the three digits "033" rather than just the two digits "33" after the
223 \0.
224 2 digits Incorrect: echo "\0337" | od -xc
226 produces: df0a (hex)
227 337 (ascii)
228 3 digits Correct: echo "\00337" | od -xc
229 produces: lb37 0a00 (hex)
230 033 7 (ascii)
231 For the octal equivalents of each character, see ascii(5).
236SunOS 5.11 8 Apr 2008 echo(1)