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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(1) 							   User Commands							   ECHO(1)

NAME
echo - display a line of text SYNOPSIS
echo [SHORT-OPTION]... [STRING]... echo LONG-OPTION DESCRIPTION
Echo the STRING(s) to standard output. -n do not output the trailing newline -e enable interpretation of backslash escapes -E disable interpretation of backslash escapes (default) --help display this help and exit --version output version information and exit If -e is in effect, the following sequences are recognized: NNN the character whose ASCII code is NNN (octal) \ backslash a alert (BEL)  backspace c produce no further output f form feed new line carriage return horizontal tab v vertical tab NOTE: your shell may have its own version of echo, which usually supersedes the version described here. Please refer to your shell's docu- mentation for details about the options it supports. AUTHOR
Written by Brian Fox and Chet Ramey. REPORTING BUGS
Report echo bugs to bug-coreutils@gnu.org GNU coreutils home page: <http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/> General help using GNU software: <http://www.gnu.org/gethelp/> COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 2009 Free Software Foundation, Inc. License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <http://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>. This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law. SEE ALSO
The full documentation for echo is maintained as a Texinfo manual. If the info and echo programs are properly installed at your site, the command info coreutils 'echo invocation' should give you access to the complete manual. GNU coreutils 7.1 July 2010 ECHO(1)
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