linux man page for echo

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:

       \     backslash

       a     alert (BEL)

            backspace

       c     produce no further output

       e     escape

       f     form feed

       
     new line

       
     carriage return

       	     horizontal tab

       v     vertical tab

       NNN  byte with octal value NNN (1 to 3 digits)

       xHH   byte with hexadecimal value HH (1 to 2 digits)

       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/>
       Report echo translation bugs to <http://translationproject.org/team/>

COPYRIGHT
       Copyright (C) 2010 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 8.5						   February 2011							   ECHO(1)