Echo

echo

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 a 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
- \E Escape
- \f Form feed
- \n New line
- \r Carriage return
- \t Horizontal tab
- \v Vertical tab
- \\ Backslash
- \0nnn The eight-bit character whose value is the octal value nnn (zero to three octal digits) if nnn is not a valid octal number, it is printed literally.
- \xHH The eight-bit character whose value is the hex value HH (one or two hex digits)
- \uHHHH The Unicode (ISO/IEC 10646) character whose value is the hex value HHHH (one to four hex digits)
- \UHHHHHHHH The Unicode (ISO/IEC 10646) character whose value is the hex value HHHHHHHH (one to eight hex 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.

Colour for echo command

Colour	Codes	Usage
Black	0;30	'\033[0;30m'
Dark Gray	1;30	'\033[1;30m'
Red	0;31	'\033[0;31m'
Light Red	1;31	'\033[1;31m'
Green	0;32	'\033[0;32m'
Light Green	1;32	'\033[1;32m'
Brown/Orange	0;33	'\033[0;33m'
Yellow	1;33	'\033[1;33m'
Blue	0;34	'\033[0;34m'
Light Blue	1;34	'\033[1;34m'
Purple	0;35	'\033[0;35m'
Light Purple	1;35	'\033[1;35m'
Cyan	0;36	'\033[0;36m'
Light Cyan	1;36	'\033[1;36m'
Light Gray	0;37	'\033[0;37m'
White	1;37	'\033[1;37m'
Reset	0	'\033[0m'
Clear the screen	2J	'\033[2J'

Examples

Display a text string:

echo "Hello World"

echo "with quotes we can echo
several lines at a time"

Display a variable:

DEMO=Testing123
echo "$DEMO"

Output:

Testing123

Display an error message in red:

BOLD_RED='\033[1;31m'
RESET='\033[0m'
echo -e "${BOLD_RED}ERROR${RESET}: The parameter was not found."

Echo with colours:

COL_BLUE="\x1b[34;01m"
COL_RESET="\x1b[39;49;00m"
echo -e $COL_BLUE"Important Message: "$COL_RESET"This is a message"

Display all colour combinations in a shell script:

#!/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

Echo

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