Display message on screen, writes each given STRING to standard output, with a space between each and a newline after the last one.
Syntax echo [options]... [String]... Options -n Do not output the trailing newline. -E Disable the interpretation of the following backslash-escaped characters. -e Enable interpretation of the following backslash-escaped characters in each String: \a alert (bell) \b backspace \c suppress trailing newline \e escape \f form feed \n new line \r carriage return \t horizontal tab \v vertical tab \\ backslash \NNN the character whose ASCII code is NNN (octal); if NNN is not a valid octal number, it is printed literally. \xnnn the character whose ASCII code is the hexadecimal value nnn (one to three digits)
This is a BASH shell builtin, to display your local syntax from the bash prompt type: help echo
There is also an echo utility (man echo) , but the shell built-in version will generally take precedence.
Examples
echo “Hello World”
DEMO=Testing123
echo “$DEMO”
# Testing123
echo “with quotes we can echo
several lines at a time”
Echo can also display in color by using Escape sequences for foreground (30..37) and background (40..47) colours.
$ COL_BLUE=”\x1b[34;01m”
$ COL_RESET=”\x1b[39;49;00m”
$ echo -e $COL_BLUE”Important Message: “$COL_RESET”This is a message”
Here is a shell script to display all the color combinations:
#!/bin/bash # echo ---Bg---40---41---42---43---44---45---46---47 for i in {30..37} # foreground do echo -n -e fg$i- for j in {40..47} # background do echo -n -e '\E['$i';'$j'm SS64' tput sgr0 # Reset text attributes to normal without clear done echo # newline done echo -- Clear BG -- for n in {30..37} # foreground do echo -e fg$n '\E['$n';'01'm SS64' tput sgr0 # Reset text attributes to normal without clear done
Related linux commands:
head – Output the first part of file(s)
less – Display output one screen at a time
more – Display output one screen at a time
notify-send – Send desktop notifications
pg – Display one page at a time
tee – Redirect output to multiple files
Equivalent Windows command: ECHO – Display message on screen