Echo newline in Bash prints literal \n
BashEchoNewlineBash Problem Overview
In Bash, tried this:
echo -e "Hello,\nWorld!"
But it doesn't print a newline, only \n
. How can I make it print the newline?
I'm using Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal).
Bash Solutions
Solution 1 - Bash
You could use printf
instead:
printf "hello\nworld\n"
printf
has more consistent behavior than echo
. The behavior of echo
varies greatly between different versions.
Solution 2 - Bash
Make sure you are in Bash.
$ echo $0
bash
All these four ways work for me:
echo -e "Hello\nworld"
echo -e 'Hello\nworld'
echo Hello$'\n'world
echo Hello ; echo world
Solution 3 - Bash
echo $'hello\nworld'
prints
hello
world
$''
strings use ANSI C Quoting:
> Words of the form $'string'
are treated specially. The word expands to string, with backslash-escaped characters replaced as specified by the ANSI C standard.
Solution 4 - Bash
You could always do echo ""
.
For example,
echo "Hello,"
echo ""
echo "World!"
Solution 5 - Bash
On the off chance that someone finds themselves beating their head against the wall trying to figure out why a coworker's script won't print newlines, look out for this:
#!/bin/bash
function GET_RECORDS()
{
echo -e "starting\n the process";
}
echo $(GET_RECORDS);
As in the above, the actual running of the method may itself be wrapped in an echo which supersedes any echos that may be in the method itself. Obviously, I watered this down for brevity. It was not so easy to spot!
You can then inform your comrades that a better way to execute functions would be like so:
#!/bin/bash
function GET_RECORDS()
{
echo -e "starting\n the process";
}
GET_RECORDS;
Solution 6 - Bash
Simply type
echo
to get a new line
Solution 7 - Bash
POSIX 7 on echo
http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/echo.html
-e
is not defined and backslashes are implementation defined:
> If the first operand is -n, or if any of the operands contain a <backslash> character, the results are implementation-defined.
unless you have an optional XSI extension.
So I recommend that you should use printf
instead, which is well specified:
> format operand shall be used as the format string described in XBD File Format Notation [...]
the File Format Notation:
> \n <newline> Move the printing position to the start of the next line.
Also keep in mind that Ubuntu 15.10 and most distros implement echo
both as:
- a Bash built-in:
help echo
- a standalone executable:
which echo
which can lead to some confusion.
Solution 8 - Bash
str='hello\nworld'
$ echo | sed "i$str"
hello
world
Solution 9 - Bash
You can also do:
echo "hello
world"
This works both inside a script and from the command line.
On the command line, press Shift+Enter to do the line break inside the string.
This works for me on my macOS and my Ubuntu 18.04 (Bionic Beaver) system.
Solution 10 - Bash
There is a new parameter expansion added in Bash 4.4 that interprets escape sequences:
> ${parameter@operator} - E operator
>
> The expansion is a string that is the value of parameter with
> backslash escape sequences expanded as with the $'…'
quoting
> mechanism.
$ foo='hello\nworld'
$ echo "${foo@E}"
hello
world
Solution 11 - Bash
I just use echo without any arguments:
echo "Hello"
echo
echo "World"
Solution 12 - Bash
To print a new line with echo, use:
echo
or
echo -e '\n'
Solution 13 - Bash
My script:
echo "WARNINGS: $warningsFound WARNINGS FOUND:\n$warningStrings
Output:
WARNING : 2 WARNINGS FOUND:\nWarning, found the following local orphaned signature file:
On my Bash script I was getting mad as you until I've just tried:
echo "WARNING : $warningsFound WARNINGS FOUND:
$warningStrings"
Just hit Enter where you want to insert that jump. The output now is:
WARNING : 2 WARNINGS FOUND:
Warning, found the following local orphaned signature file:
Solution 14 - Bash
This could better be done as
x="\n"
echo -ne $x
-e option will interpret backslahes for the escape sequence
-n option will remove the trailing newline in the output
PS: the command echo has an effect of always including a trailing newline in the output so -n is required to turn that thing off (and make it less confusing)
Solution 15 - Bash
If you're writing scripts and will be echoing newlines as part of other messages several times, a nice cross-platform solution is to put a literal newline in a variable like so:
newline='
'
echo "first line$newlinesecond line"
echo "Error: example error message n${newline}${usage}" >&2 #requires usage to be defined
Solution 16 - Bash
If the previous answers don't work, and there is a need to get a return value from their function:
function foo()
{
local v="Dimi";
local s="";
.....
s+="Some message here $v $1\n"
.....
echo $s
}
r=$(foo "my message");
echo -e $r;
Only this trick worked on a Linux system I was working on with this Bash version:
GNU bash, version 2.2.25(1)-release (x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu)
Solution 17 - Bash
You could also use echo with braces,
$ (echo hello; echo world)
hello
world
Solution 18 - Bash
This got me there....
outstuff=RESOURCE_GROUP=[$RESOURCE_GROUP]\\nAKS_CLUSTER_NAME=[$AKS_CLUSTER_NAME]\\nREGION_NAME=[$REGION_NAME]\\nVERSION=[$VERSION]\\nSUBNET-ID=[$SUBNET_ID]
printf $outstuff
Yields:
RESOURCE_GROUP=[akswork-rg]
AKS_CLUSTER_NAME=[aksworkshop-804]
REGION_NAME=[eastus]
VERSION=[1.16.7]
SUBNET-ID=[/subscriptions/{subidhere}/resourceGroups/makeakswork-rg/providers/Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworks/aks-vnet/subnets/aks-subnet]
Solution 19 - Bash
Sometimes you can pass multiple strings separated by a space and it will be interpreted as \n
.
For example when using a shell script for multi-line notifcations:
#!/bin/bash
notify-send 'notification success' 'another line' 'time now '`date +"%s"`
Solution 20 - Bash
Additional solution:
In cases, you have to echo a multiline of the long contents (such as code/ configurations)
For example:
- A Bash script to generate codes/ configurations
echo -e
,
printf
might have some limitation
You can use some special char as a placeholder as a line break (such as ~
) and replace it after the file was created using tr
:
echo ${content} | tr '~' '\n' > $targetFile
It needs to invoke another program (tr
) which should be fine, IMO.