1.\" Copyright (c) 1991, 1993 2.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. 3.\" 4.\" This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by 5.\" Kenneth Almquist. 6.\" Copyright 1989 by Kenneth Almquist 7.\" 8.\" %sccs.include.redist.roff% 9.\" 10.\" @(#)echo.1 8.2 (Berkeley) 05/04/95 11.\" 12.Dd 13.Dt ECHO 1 14.Os BSD 4.4 15.Sh NAME 16.Nm echo 17.Nd produce message in a shell script 18.Sh SYNOPSIS 19.Nm echo 20.Op Fl n | Fl e 21.Ar args... 22.Sh DESCRIPTION 23.Nm Echo 24prints its arguments on the standard output, separated by spaces. 25Unless the 26.Fl n 27option is present, a newline is output following the arguments. 28The 29.Fl e 30option causes 31.Nm echo 32to treat the escape sequences specially, as described in the following 33paragraph. 34The 35.Fl e 36option is the default, and is provided solely for compatibility with 37other systems. 38Only one of the options 39.Fl n 40and 41.Fl e 42may be given. 43.Pp 44If any of the following sequences of characters is encountered during 45output, the sequence is not output. Instead, the specified action is 46performed: 47.Bl -tag -width indent 48.It Li \eb 49A backspace character is output. 50.It Li \ec 51Subsequent output is suppressed. This is normally used at the end of the 52last argument to suppress the trailing newline that 53.Nm echo 54would otherwise output. 55.It Li \ef 56Output a form feed. 57.It Li \en 58Output a newline character. 59.It Li \er 60Output a carriage return. 61.It Li \et 62Output a (horizontal) tab character. 63.It Li \ev 64Output a vertical tab. 65.It Li \e0 Ns Ar digits 66Output the character whose value is given by zero to three digits. 67If there are zero digits, a nul character is output. 68.It Li \e\e 69Output a backslash. 70.El 71.Sh HINTS 72Remember that backslash is special to the shell and needs to be escaped. 73To output a message to standard error, say 74.Pp 75.D1 echo message >&2 76.Sh BUGS 77The octal character escape mechanism 78.Pq Li \e0 Ns Ar digits 79differs from the 80C language mechanism. 81.Pp 82There is no way to force 83.Nm echo 84to treat its arguments literally, rather than interpreting them as 85options and escape sequences. 86