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Top Forums Shell Programming and Scripting Echo displays strange output when '?' is used Post 303046005 by bedtime on Tuesday 21st of April 2020 01:23:13 PM
Old 04-21-2020
Echo displays strange output when '?' is used

In bash or sh terminal I get this strange response when using echo.


It's really best just to give you the code:

Code:
user@localhost:~$ text="?"; echo $text
P T V
user@localhost:~$ text='?'; echo $text
P T V
user@localhost:~$ text='?'; printf "$text\n"
?

So, printf works nicely but is there a way to get printf to take the escape sequences of variables?


I think it might have happened after messing around with Gnome-Shell extensions but not sure.


Any idea why it's happening or how to get rid of it?
 

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echo(1B)					     SunOS/BSD Compatibility Package Commands						  echo(1B)

NAME
echo - echo arguments to standard output SYNOPSIS
/usr/ucb/echo [-n] [argument] DESCRIPTION
echo writes its arguments, separated by BLANKs and terminated by a NEWLINE, to the standard output. echo is useful for producing diagnostics in command files and for sending known data into a pipe, and for displaying the contents of envi- ronment variables. For example, you can use echo to determine how many subdirectories below the root directory (/) is your current directory, as follows: o echo your current-working-directory's full pathname o pipe the output through tr to translate the path's embedded slash-characters into space-characters o pipe that output through wc -w for a count of the names in your path. example% /usr/bin/echo "echo $PWD | tr '/' ' ' | wc -w" See tr(1) and wc(1) for their functionality. The shells csh(1), ksh(1), and sh(1), each have an echo built-in command, which, by default, will have precedence, and will be invoked if the user calls echo without a full pathname. /usr/ucb/echo and csh's echo() have an -n option, but do not understand back-slashed escape characters. sh's echo(), ksh's echo(), and /usr/bin/echo, on the other hand, understand the black-slashed escape characters, and ksh's echo() also understands a as the audible bell character; however, these commands do not have an -n option. OPTIONS
-n Do not add the NEWLINE to the output. ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes: +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ | ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE | +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ |Availability |SUNWscpu | +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+ SEE ALSO
csh(1), echo(1), ksh(1), sh(1), tr(1), wc(1), attributes(5) NOTES
The -n option is a transition aid for BSD applications, and may not be supported in future releases. SunOS 5.11 3 Aug 1994 echo(1B)
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