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ECHO(1P) POSIX Programmer's Manual ECHO(1P)

PROLOG
This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual. The Linux implementation of this interface may differ (con-
sult the corresponding Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior), or the interface may not be implemented on
Linux.

NAME
echo - write arguments to standard output

SYNOPSIS
echo [string ...]

DESCRIPTION
The echo utility writes its arguments to standard output, followed by a <newline>. If there are no arguments, only the
<newline> is written.

OPTIONS
The echo utility shall not recognize the "--" argument in the manner specified by Guideline 10 of the Base Definitions
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 back-
slash ( '\' ) 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 following
character sequences shall be recognized on XSI-conformant systems within any of the arguments:

\a
Write an <alert>.

\b
Write a <backspace>.

\c
Suppress the <newline> that otherwise follows the final argument in the output. All characters following the '\c'
in the arguments shall be ignored.

\f
Write a <form-feed>.

\n
Write a <newline>.

\r
Write a <carriage-return>.

\t
Write a <tab>.

\v
Write a <vertical-tab>.

\\
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 internationalization 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 international-
ization variables used to determine the values of locale categories.)

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 messages written to stan-
dard 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 <space>s and a <newline> shall follow the last argument. Output
transformations shall occur based on the escape sequences in the input. See the OPERANDS section.

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 follows
(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 applications. Con-
forming applications that wish to do prompting without <newline>s or that could possibly be expecting 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 <newline> 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 section.

The echo utility does not support Utility Syntax Guideline 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.