Text Processing
echo
Display a line of text or variable values to standard output.
Synopsis
syntax
echo [OPTION]... [STRING]...
Examples
Print a string
echo 'Hello, World!'
Print without trailing newline
echo -n 'no newline'
Print with escape sequences
echo -e 'line1\nline2\tindented'
Print environment variable
echo "HOME is $HOME"
Common options
| Flag | Description |
|---|---|
| -n | Do not append trailing newline |
| -e | Enable interpretation of backslash escapes |
| -E | Disable interpretation of escapes (default) |
About echo
The `echo` command display a line of text or variable values to standard output. Text processing commands transform, format, and generate text output.
Linux's philosophy of small composable tools shines here — these commands are designed to be piped together to build complex text-processing workflows. They are indispensable for scripting, log analysis, and data transformation tasks.
The command accepts 3 commonly used flags shown above, though the full set of options is available in the man page (`man echo`). The 4 examples on this page cover typical real-world usage patterns that you can copy and adapt for your own workflows.
Related commands
More Text Processing Commands
Other commands in the Text Processing category