echo (display text)
Displays the text or variables specified. Format: echo textstring
Examples: echo Hello World
echo $HOME
The first example displays Hello World on the screen. The second example displays the contents of the variable HOME. $ indicates that HOME is a variable. HOME contains the path to your home directory, so the second example displays the path to your home directory on the screen. You can use some special characters with the echo command to format the output, shown in the first table below. The second table shows the most useful options for echo. Char | What It Does | Example |
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\a | Alert (rings bell) | echo \aerror | \b | Backspace | echo \bHello | \c | Suppress new line | echo $text_line\c | \f | Form feed | echo Hello World\f | \n | Start a new line | echo Hello \nWorld | \r | Carriage return | echo Hello World\r | \t | Insert a tab | echo Hello \tWorld | \v | Insert a vertical tab | echo \vHello World | \\ | Literal | echo This is a backslash \\ | Opt | What It Does | Example |
|---|
-n | Don't start a new line after text |
echo -n Hello
echo " World
Hello World
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