sunos man page for echo

echo(1) 							   User Commands							   echo(1)

NAME
       echo - echo arguments

SYNOPSIS
       /usr/bin/echo [string...]

DESCRIPTION
       The  echo utility writes its arguments, separated by BLANKs and terminated by a NEWLINE, to the standard output. If there are no arguments,
       only the NEWLINE character will be written.

       echo is useful for producing diagnostics in command files, for sending known data into a pipe, and for displaying the contents of  environ-
       ment variables.

       The  C  shell,  the  Korn shell, and the Bourne shell all have echo built-in commands, which, by default, will be invoked if the user calls
       echo without a full pathname. See shell_builtins(1). sh's echo, ksh's echo, and /usr/bin/echo understand the  back-slashed  escape  charac-
       ters,  except that sh's echo does not understand a as the alert character. In addition, ksh's echo, does not have an -n option. sh's  echo
       and /usr/bin/echo only have an -n option if the SYSV3 environment variable is set (see ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES below). If it is, none of  the
       backslashed characters mentioned above are available. csh's echo and /usr/ucb/echo, on the other hand, have an -n option, but do not under-
       stand the back-slashed escape characters.

OPERANDS
       The following operand is supported:

       string	A string to be written to standard output. If any operand is "-n", it will be treated as a string, not an  option.  The  following
		character sequences will be recognized within any of the arguments:

		a	 Alert character.

			 Backspace.

		c	 Print line without new-line. All characters following the c in the argument are ignored.

		f	 Form-feed.

		
	 New-line.

		
	 Carriage return.

				 Tab.

		v	 Vertical tab.

		\	 Backslash.

		n	 Where n is the 8-bit character whose ASCII code is the 1-, 2- or 3-digit octal number representing that character.

USAGE
       Portable applications should not use -n (as the first argument) or escape sequences.

       The printf(1) utility can be used portably to emulate any of the traditional behaviors of the echo utility as follows:

	 o  The Solaris 2.6 operating environment or compatible version's /usr/bin/echo is equivalent to:

	    printf "%b
" "$*"

	 o  The /usr/ucb/echo is equivalent to:

	    if [ "X$1" = "X-n" ]

	    then

		    shift

		    printf "%s" "$*"

	    else

		    printf "%s
" "$*"

	    fi

       New applications are encouraged to use printf instead of echo.

EXAMPLES
       Example 1: Finding how far below root your current directory is located

       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 $PWD | tr '/' ' ' | wc -w

       See tr(1) and wc(1) for their functionality.

       Below are the different flavors for echoing a string without a NEWLINE:

       Example 2: /usr/bin/echo

       example% /usr/bin/echo "$USER's current directory is $PWDc"

       Example 3: sh/ksh shells

       example$ echo "$USER's current directory is $PWDc"

       Example 4: csh shell

       example% echo -n "$USER's current directory is $PWD"

       Example 5: /usr/ucb/echo

       example% /usr/ucb/echo -n "$USER's current directory is $PWD"

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
       See  environ(5)	for descriptions of the following environment variables that affect the execution of echo: LANG, LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, LC_MES-
       SAGES, and NLSPATH.

       SYSV3	This environment variable is used to provide compatibility with INTERACTIVE UNIX System and SCO UNIX installation scripts.  It	is
		intended for compatibility only and should not be used in new scripts.

EXIT STATUS
       The following error values are returned:

       0	Successful completion.

       >0	An error occurred.

ATTRIBUTES
       See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:

       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |      ATTRIBUTE TYPE	     |	    ATTRIBUTE VALUE	   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |Availability		     |SUNWcsu			   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |CSI			     |enabled			   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |Interface Stability	     |Standard			   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+

SEE ALSO
       echo(1B), printf(1), shell_builtins(1), tr(1), wc(1), ascii(5), attributes(5), environ(5), standards(5)

NOTES
       When representing an 8-bit character by using the escape convention n, the n must always be preceded by the digit zero(0).

       For example, typing: echo 'WARNING:7' will print the phrase WARNING: and sound the "bell" on your terminal. The use of single (or double)
       quotes (or two backslashes) is required to protect the "" that precedes the "07".

       Following the , up to three digits are used in constructing the octal output character. If, following the n, you  want  to  echo  addi-
       tional  digits that are not part of the octal representation, you must use the full 3-digit n. For example, if you want to echo "ESC 7" you
       must use the three digits "033" rather than just the two digits "33" after the .

	      2 digits	       Incorrect:      echo"0337 | od -xc
			       produces:       df0a		       (hex)
					       337		       (ascii)
	      3 digits	       Correct:        echo "00337" | od -xc
			       produces:       lb37 0a00	       (hex)
					       033 7		       (ascii)

       For the octal equivalents of each character, see ascii(5).

SunOS 5.10							    20 Jan 2000 							   echo(1)