echo(P) echo(P) NAME echo - write arguments to standard output SYNOPSIS echo [string ...] DESCRIPTION The echo utility writes its arguments to standard out- put, followed by a . If there are no arguments, only the is written. OPTIONS The echo utility shall not recognize the "--" argument in the manner specified by Guideline 10 of the Base Def- initions volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Section 12.2, Utility Syntax Guidelines; "--" shall be recognized as a string operand. Implementations shall not support any options. OPERANDS The following operands shall be supported: string A string to be written to standard output. If the first operand is -n, or if any of the operands contain a backslash ( '\' ) character, the results are implementation-defined. On XSI-conformant systems, if the first operand is -n, it shall be treated as a string, not an option. The fol- lowing character sequences shall be recognized on XSI- conformant systems within any of the arguments: \a Write an . \b Write a . \c Suppress the that otherwise follows the final argument in the output. All characters fol- lowing the '\c' in the arguments shall be ignored. \f Write a . \n Write a . \r Write a . \t Write a . \v Write a . \\ Write a backslash character. \0num Write an 8-bit value that is the zero, one, two, or three-digit octal number num. STDIN Not used. INPUT FILES None. ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES The following environment variables shall affect the execution of echo: LANG Provide a default value for the internationaliza- tion variables that are unset or null. (See the Base Definitions volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001, Section 8.2, Internationalization Variables for the precedence of internationalization variables used to determine the values of locale cate- gories.) LC_ALL If set to a non-empty string value, override the values of all the other internationalization variables. LC_CTYPE Determine the locale for the interpretation of sequences of bytes of text data as characters (for example, single-byte as opposed to multi- byte characters in arguments). LC_MESSAGES Determine the locale that should be used to affect the format and contents of diagnostic mes- sages written to standard error. NLSPATH Determine the location of message catalogs for the processing of LC_MESSAGES . ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS Default. STDOUT The echo utility arguments shall be separated by single s and a shall follow the last argument. Output transformations shall occur based on the escape sequences in the input. See the OPERANDS section. [Option End] STDERR The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages. OUTPUT FILES None. EXTENDED DESCRIPTION None. EXIT STATUS The following exit values shall be returned: 0 Successful completion. >0 An error occurred. CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS Default. The following sections are informative. APPLICATION USAGE It is not possible to use echo portably across all POSIX systems unless both -n (as the first argument) and escape sequences are omitted. The printf utility can be used portably to emulate any of the traditional behaviors of the echo utility as fol- lows (assuming that IFS has its standard value or is unset): The historic System V echo and the requirements on XSI implementations in this volume of IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 are equivalent to: printf "%b\n" "$*" The BSD echo is equivalent to: if [ "X$1" = "X-n" ] then shift printf "%s" "$*" else printf "%s\n" "$*" fi New applications are encouraged to use printf instead of echo. EXAMPLES None. RATIONALE The echo utility has not been made obsolescent because of its extremely widespread use in historical applica- tions. Conforming applications that wish to do prompt- ing without s or that could possibly be expect- ing to echo a -n, should use the printf utility derived from the Ninth Edition system. As specified, echo writes its arguments in the simplest of ways. The two different historical versions of echo vary in fatally incompatible ways. The BSD echo checks the first argument for the string -n which causes it to suppress the that would otherwise follow the final argument in the output. The System V echo does not support any options, but allows escape sequences within its operands, as described for XSI implementations in the OPERANDS sec- tion. The echo utility does not support Utility Syntax Guide- line 10 because historical applications depend on echo to echo all of its arguments, except for the -n option in the BSD version. FUTURE DIRECTIONS None. SEE ALSO printf COPYRIGHT Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic form from IEEE Std 1003.1, 2003 Edition, Standard for Information Technology -- Portable Operat- ing System Interface (POSIX), The Open Group Base Speci- fications Issue 6, Copyright (C) 2001-2003 by the Insti- tute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. In the event of any discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group Standard is the referee document. The original Standard can be obtained online at http://www.open- group.org/unix/online.html . POSIX 2003 echo(P)