freebsd man page for echo

ECHO(1) 						    BSD General Commands Manual 						   ECHO(1)

NAME
     echo -- write arguments to the standard output

SYNOPSIS
     echo [-n] [string ...]

DESCRIPTION
     The echo utility writes any specified operands, separated by single blank (' ') characters and followed by a newline ('
') character, to the
     standard output.

     The following option is available:

     -n    Do not print the trailing newline character.

     The end-of-options marker -- is not recognized and written literally.

     The newline may also be suppressed by appending 'c' to the end of the string, as is done by iBCS2 compatible systems.  Note that the -n
     option as well as the effect of 'c' are implementation-defined in IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 (``POSIX.1'') as amended by Cor. 1-2002.  For porta-
     bility, echo should only be used if the first argument does not start with a hyphen ('-') and does not contain any backslashes ('').  If
     this is not sufficient, printf(1) should be used.

     Most shells provide a builtin echo command which tends to differ from this utility in the treatment of options and backslashes.  Consult the
     builtin(1) manual page.

EXIT STATUS
     The echo utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.

SEE ALSO
     builtin(1), csh(1), printf(1), sh(1)

STANDARDS
     The echo utility conforms to IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 (``POSIX.1'') as amended by Cor. 1-2002.

BSD
								 November 12, 2010							       BSD