ECHO(1,C)                   AIX Commands Reference                    ECHO(1,C)



-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
echo



PURPOSE

Writes its arguments to standard output.

SYNTAX


        +------+
echo ---|      |--- string ---|
        +- -n -+ ^          |
                 +----------+


DESCRIPTION

Note:  The following description applies to /bin/echo and the sh built-in echo
       command.  See page csh-15 for a description of the csh built-in echo
       command.

The echo command writes its arguments to standard output.  The strings are
separated by blanks and a new-line character follows the last string.  Use echo
to produce diagnostic messages in command files and to send data into a pipe.

The echo command recognizes the following escape conventions:

\b                    Display a backspace character.

\c                    Suppress the new-line character.  Use as last option on
                      command line; it ignores all characters after this
                      option.

\f                    Display a form-feed character.

\n                    Display a new-line character.

\r                    Display a carriage return character.

\t                    Display a tab character.

\\                    Display a backslash character.

\num                  Display an 8-bit character, whose ASCII value is the 1-,
                      2- or 3-digit octal number num.  The first digit of num
                      must be a zero.

FLAG




Processed November 8, 1990         ECHO(1,C)                                  1

ECHO(1,C)                   AIX Commands Reference                    ECHO(1,C)



-n      No newline is added to the output.

EXAMPLES

  1. To write a message to standard output:

      echo Please insert diskette . . .

  2. To display a message containing special characters:

      echo "\n\n\nI'm at lunch.\nI'll be back at 1:00."

    This skips three lines and displays the message:

      I'm at lunch.
      I'll be back at 1:00.

    Note:  You must quote the message if it contains escape sequences like
           "\n".  Otherwise, the shell treats the "\" specially.  See page
           sh-5 for details about quoting.

  3. To use echo with pattern-matching characters:

      echo The back-up files are: *.bak

    This displays the message "The back-up files are:" followed by the file
    names in the current directory ending with ".bak".

  4. To add a single line of text to a file:

      echo Remember to set the shell search path to $PATH. >>notes

    This adds the message to the end of the file "notes" after the shell
    substitutes the value of the shell variable PATH.

  5. To write a message to the standard error output:

      echo Error: file already exists. >&2

    Use this in shell procedures to write error messages.  If the ">&2" is
    omitted, the message is written to the standard output.  For details about
    this type of file redirection, see "Input and Output Redirection Using File
    Descriptors."

RELATED INFORMATION

See the following commands:  "csh," "sh, Rsh" and "dspmsg."








Processed November 8, 1990         ECHO(1,C)                                  2