Echo newline in Bash prints literal \n

Question

How do I print a newline? This merely prints \n:

$ echo -e "Hello,\nWorld!"
Hello,\nWorld!

Eartha

For those saying "it works for me", the behavior of echo varies quite a bit between versions. Some will even print the "-e" as part of their output. If you want predictable behavior for anything nontrivial, use printf instead (as in @sth's answer). – Nardi

I could not get any of the suggestions in this answer working, because, as it turns out, I was attempting to use it in a function that returns a value, and all the echo (and printf) messages in the function were being appended to the return value after being individually stripped of newlines. Here is a question regarding this, with an extremely thorough answer: #27872569 This was like a three hour mystery tour. – Greenman

Also notable: in Unix & Linux Stack Exchange, the accepted answer to How to add new lines when using echo – Bisset

echo -ne "hello\nworld" (you needed the n flag to interpret escapes) - but as others say, different echo commands may have different results! – Gratulant

@Gratulant echo -n man page entry on archlinux ` -n do not output the trailing newline` It has nothing to do with interpreting escapes – Alrick

@altu, that's correct. The purpose of the -n flag is to use \n within the formatting string. Of course you may decide to keep the trailing \n, but as you are formatting them, it's not unusual to remove them. – Gratulant

It works fine in Bash corresponding to Ubuntu MATE 20.04 (Focal Fossa) - Bash version 5.0.17 (GNU bash, version 5.0.17(1)-release (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)) – Enfield

Since echo adds a newline by default you could always run echo "Hello," && echo "World!" – Eliezer

As search engine hits may include this one (e.g., for "echo Bash no newline"): See "echo -n" prints "-n" (canonical question, despite the title), How can I 'echo' out things without a newline?, and 'echo' newline suppression. – Enfield

Just read what POSIX says about echo pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009604599/utilities/echo.html – Judyjudye

@Gratulant No, it's not. -n prevents echo from writing a trailing newline, that's it. It has nothing to do with interrupting the digraph \n as a literal newline character: that's what -e is for. – Samp

Answer 1

Use printf instead:

printf "hello\nworld\n"

printf behaves more consistently across different environments than echo.

Signatory

or even printf %"s\n" hello world -- printf will reuse the format if too many arguments are given – Matrilateral

The OP asked about echo, not printf; and @choroba's answer below, which uses the -e option, fills the bill perfectly. – Zoubek

@JESii: It fits if your echo happens to support the -e option. – Signatory

Fair enough, @sth. Then how about the echo $'xxx' approach. – Zoubek

With some versions of echo, -e is just printed in the output itself so I think this answer is perfectly valid since echo isn't consistent here (unless we're talking about a specific version). – Uda

This is well and good if printf is available, but unlike echo sometimes printf isn't on the distro. – Dervish

@Dervish Then you can install it or reference the other answers. He said "You could use printf instead" and stated it's advantages. – Hhour

@Dervish If you are using bash, which the asker specifies, then printf is a builtin command and comes with the shell (see man bash under "SHELL BUILTIN COMMANDS"). It's not distro-dependent in this case. – Eakin

I can't seem to get printf "#\!/bin/bash > output.sh to work the way I would expect. – Albany

@Dervish Even if the OP hadn't said they're using Bash and Ubuntu, the printf command has been standard for quite some time, and is also present as an executable, in case one's shell doesn't have it as a builtin. printf is regarded as the portable, reliable choice. You said "unlike echo sometimes printf isn't on the distro"--are there real examples of Unix-like (even if not generally POSIX-conforming) operating systems, that people actually use, that don't have a printf command? – Conakry

I'm on WSL (Ubuntu 18.04) and I get this error: bash: printf: - : invalid option printf: usage: printf [-v var] format [arguments] – Skewbald

Oh, for anyone else having the same issue with printf as mine try: printf "%b" "hello\nworld\n" Also to read more: wiki.bash-hackers.org/commands/builtin/printf – Skewbald

@rustyx, that's true in C, not in bash. (Fixed format strings are good practice even in bash, yes; exploitable in the conventional way -- which is to say, on account of code making assumptions about location of variables on the stack and thus performing invalid reads -- not at all; the only issues that happen in bash are wrt. data that should be literal being instead treated as directives). – Thole

@bigtunacan, printf is POSIX-specified in far more detail than echo is. That is to say, many different echo behaviors can call themselves POSIX-compliant, but every POSIX-compliant UNIX will have a printf command that behaves exactly the same way included (for all the standard-defined operators). – Thole

I tried printf, but I end up with a trailing seemingly selected '%' sign. printf "abc" => ouputs abc% (running zsh on Debian GNU/Linux 10 (buster)) Thus falling back to the echo -e option – Lair

@Lair Do you maybe miss a trailing \n and the % is your shell prompt? – Signatory

@Signatory That indeed fixes the problem, but why then does the behavior change (no trailing %) when using bash or sh ? I am missing some piece information on zsh behavior ? – Lair

@Wasabi: The % is not printed by printf, it's printed by zsh as part of its command prompt. Bash uses $ or something more complicated instead, that's why it looks different with bash. printf prints the same thing both times, and following that the shell prints it's command prompt. This command prompt looks different in zsh than in bash/sh. – Signatory

@Signatory In this case, it's zsh printing a % to indicate that there was no trailing newline in the output, before unconditionally putting the prompt on the next line. (bash, by contrast, would simply print the prompt on the same line as the last of the output.) zsh's behavior is controlled by the PROMPT_SP and PROMPT_EOL_MARK options. – Samp

Answer 2

Make sure you are in Bash.

$ echo $0
bash

All these four ways work for me:

echo -e "Hello\nworld"
echo -e 'Hello\nworld'
echo Hello$'\n'world
echo Hello ; echo world

Transpacific

-e flag did it for me, which "enables interpretation of backslash escapes" – Elbowroom

I think -e param doesn't exist on all *nix OS – Tiemroth

@kenorb: It exists in bash. It is a builtin. – Transpacific

Why does the third one work? Without the $ it returns "Hello n world" – Rampart

One more way: echo -e hello\\nworld – Fulguration

As mentioned by various other -e does NOT work for all distributions and versions. In some cases it is ignored and in others it will actually be printed out. I don't believe this fixed it for the OP so should not be accepted answer – Hhour

@csga5000: the third option should work regardless of the version. Moreover, this isn't the accepted answer. – Transpacific

@Transpacific Good point, the third option is a good solution. And I know it's not, I just was just countering the comment saying it should be accepted answer (which had 43 upvotes) – Hhour

just type 'man echo' in the terminal and then it is clear that for enabling interpretation of backslash sequences we need to add '-e'; the documentation also provides all the common backslash sequences that can be interpreted. – Bostwick

@Sheetalgupta: But help echo (in bash) shows a different page that describes the bash builtin. – Transpacific

man bash and help echo show the same information for me ,rather man bash more detailed official documentation – Bostwick

man bash and help echo show the same information, but man echo doesn't. – Transpacific

"Are you sure you're in bash?" It's the echo -e flag that makes this work as expected. – Licko

@Christian: In other shells, the builtin echo doesn't have to support the -e flag. That's why I asked. – Transpacific

@kenorb: except when 'echo' is not a builtin, but '/bin/echo' – Proceleusmatic

At this point may I ask what the difference between echo -e and printf? Are there any performance penalties for using printf? Thanks in advance. – Anthracoid

@ozanmuyes: echo -e might not be supported in other shells. echo doesn't understand the % placeholders that printf uses. – Transpacific

@xamid Just know that the & makes a process go in background, so I would try echo Hello && echo world (the difference here is && instead of &) – Nadeau

You are right, && is what I meant (& prints some undesired extra message about completion of the task). Plus echo Hello && echo world even works on Windows (where A && B means to execute B only when A executed successfully). – Paugh

yea; another thing is ; if you simply don't care about the exit code(if the prev.commands was run s.fully or failed) it's shorter too, so yea, and have a nice day! – Nadeau

Answer 3

echo $'hello\nworld'

prints

hello
world

$'' strings use ANSI C Quoting:

Character sequences of the form $’string’ are treated as a special kind of single quotes. The sequence expands to string, with backslash-escaped characters in string replaced as specified by the ANSI C standard.

Northwester

@EvgeniSergeev Not sure what you mean, but it didn't work for me either first. And that's because I was using double quotes and turns out this works only with single quotes! Tried in Terminal on Mac. – Ungotten

Problems with variables in the string not being expanded. – Geostrophic

You can still concatenate double-quote strings. ` foo="bar"; echo $''$foo'efoot'` – Ease

It woks on GNU bash, version 4.4.23(1)-release (x86_64-pc-msys) W10 like a charm. – Malarkey

This also works for read -p prompt: read -p $'Quick!\n' -t 1 – Arrearage

PSA, not sh compatible – Lambdacism

Answer 4

You could always do echo "".

For example,

echo "Hello,"
echo ""
echo "World!"

Adulteress

echo "" works for me and I think it's the simplest form to print a new line, even if this doesn't directly answer the question. Cheers. – Piquet

I think it's less obvious (and thus potentially more confusing) than echo -en "\n". – Audrit

echo is enough to obtain an empty line – Oboe

The \n did not work when you are using the read. But your method worked for adding a line. – Bibliolatry

i had trouble getting the other answers to work on Mac. i ended up going with this incredibly obvious solution. :) – Meditate

Doesn't this put 2 newlines between Hello and World ? Upvoted anyway because I value simplicity and clarity. – Oulman

Answer 5

On the off chance that someone finds themselves beating their head against the wall trying to figure out why a coworker's script won't print newlines, look out for this:

#!/bin/bash
function GET_RECORDS()
{
   echo -e "starting\n the process";
}

echo $(GET_RECORDS);

As in the above, the actual running of the method may itself be wrapped in an echo which supersedes any echos that may be in the method itself. Obviously, I watered this down for brevity. It was not so easy to spot!

You can then inform your comrades that a better way to execute functions would be like so:

#!/bin/bash
function GET_RECORDS()
{
   echo -e "starting\n the process";
}

GET_RECORDS;

Harrod

Be sure you wrap the variable with quotes before echoing it out of the method. – Pisciculture

Answer 6

Simply type

echo

to get a new line

Belldas

Vastly underrated answer, can't believe this question has amassed 20+ answers since 2011 and that not one of them contains this simple solution. – Soilure

@Ahi Tuna: Please use your console keyboard shortcuts instead :) – Belldas

@RSun and how would I do that on a Debian terminal window on a Chromebook? – Venavenable

@AhiTuna printf "\033c" – Othilia

On the screen-clearing, Ctrl+L will also clear the screen on the majority of terminals. – Nawrocki

@AhiTuna to clear screen, just type clear command – Unjaundiced

Answer 7

For only the question asked (not special characters etc) changing only double quotes to single quotes.

echo -e 'Hello,\nWorld!'

Results in:

Hello,
World!

Tuberose

Tested with double quotes in RHEL 9.7 and works fine. – Disheveled

Answer 8

POSIX 7 on echo

http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/echo.html

-e is not defined and backslashes are implementation defined:

If the first operand is -n, or if any of the operands contain a <backslash> character, the results are implementation-defined.

unless you have an optional XSI extension.

So I recommend that you should use printf instead, which is well specified:

format operand shall be used as the format string described in XBD File Format Notation [...]

the File Format Notation:

\n <newline> Move the printing position to the start of the next line.

Also keep in mind that Ubuntu 15.10 and most distros implement echo both as:

• a Bash built-in: help echo
• a standalone executable: which echo

which can lead to some confusion.

Best

Answer 9

str='hello\nworld'
$ echo | sed "i$str"
hello
world

Physostomous

This is actually a great answer since it works for string concatenations. Great! – Oletaoletha

Why bother to invoke a second program? It's not that we are trying to write a real time application in bash ;) but its not necessary. – Luella

Answer 10

You can also do:

echo "hello
world"

This works both inside a script and from the command line.

On the command line, press Shift+Enter to do the line break inside the string.

This works for me on my macOS and my Ubuntu 18.04 (Bionic Beaver) system.

Keim

Answer 11

There is a new parameter expansion added in Bash 4.4 that interprets escape sequences:

${parameter@operator} - E operator

The expansion is a string that is the value of parameter with backslash escape sequences expanded as with the $'…' quoting mechanism.

$ foo='hello\nworld'
$ echo "${foo@E}"
hello
world

Hygroscope

worked like a charm for printing a message that was a variable inside a function, from outside the function. – Redness

Answer 12

I just use echo without any arguments:

echo "Hello"
echo
echo "World"

Elvieelvin

This is wrong as Hello is followed by two line breaks and not only one. – Frannie

Answer 13

To print a new line with echo, use:

echo

or

echo -e '\n'

Cowper

Answer 14

My script:

echo "WARNINGS: $warningsFound WARNINGS FOUND:\n$warningStrings

Output:

WARNING : 2 WARNINGS FOUND:\nWarning, found the following local orphaned signature file:

On my Bash script I was getting mad as you until I've just tried:

echo "WARNING : $warningsFound WARNINGS FOUND:
$warningStrings"

Just hit Enter where you want to insert that jump. The output now is:

WARNING : 2 WARNINGS FOUND:
Warning, found the following local orphaned signature file:

Breakdown

Just a note, you will probably want to use ${ } around your variable names as not doing so can lead to really weird behavior when a shell finds a variable called $warningsFound and prints that and not the two separate outputs. – Syd

@Syd maybe I'm missing something, but the variable IS actually called $warningsFound ? – Stiff

I missed a word on that. If you had a variable called $warnings, in some cases without using ${warningsFound}, you could potentially end up with the contents of $warnings + "Found" instead of the variable you intended. – Syd

Answer 15

This could better be done as

x="\n"
echo -ne $x

-e option will interpret backslahes for the escape sequence
-n option will remove the trailing newline in the output

PS: the command echo has an effect of always including a trailing newline in the output so -n is required to turn that thing off (and make it less confusing)

Steeplejack

echo -ne "hello\nworld" for the exact answer of the question :) – Steeplejack

Answer 16

If you're writing scripts and will be echoing newlines as part of other messages several times, a nice cross-platform solution is to put a literal newline in a variable like so:

newline='
'

echo "first line${newline}second line"
echo "Error: example error message n${newline}${usage}" >&2 #requires usage to be defined

Khosrow

Answer 17

If the previous answers don't work, and there is a need to get a return value from their function:

function foo()
{
    local v="Dimi";
    local s="";
    .....
    s+="Some message here $v $1\n"
    .....
    echo $s
}

r=$(foo "my message");
echo -e $r;

Only this trick worked on a Linux system I was working on with this Bash version:

GNU bash, version 2.2.25(1)-release (x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu)

Lignify

Answer 18

In a .command file in MacOS, the following works;

• echo $'\nAll \nis \ndone!'

• echo -e $"\nAll \nis \ndone!"

• echo $'\n'

macos .command bash echo newline

Retraction

Answer 19

You could also use echo with braces,

$ (echo hello; echo world)
hello
world

Towhee

syntax error near unexpected token `(' when called in .sh file – Karleen

try echo hello; echo world – Towhee

Or "echo hello && echo world" or just:" echo hello echo world – Hhour

An explanation would be in order. – Enfield

Answer 20

This got me there....

outstuff=RESOURCE_GROUP=[$RESOURCE_GROUP]\\nAKS_CLUSTER_NAME=[$AKS_CLUSTER_NAME]\\nREGION_NAME=[$REGION_NAME]\\nVERSION=[$VERSION]\\nSUBNET-ID=[$SUBNET_ID]
printf $outstuff

Yields:

RESOURCE_GROUP=[akswork-rg]
AKS_CLUSTER_NAME=[aksworkshop-804]
REGION_NAME=[eastus]
VERSION=[1.16.7]
SUBNET-ID=[/subscriptions/{subidhere}/resourceGroups/makeakswork-rg/providers/Microsoft.Network/virtualNetworks/aks-vnet/subnets/aks-subnet]

Maris

An explanation would be in order. E.g, what is the gist/idea? Please respond by editing your answer, not here in comments (without "Edit:", "Update:", or similar - the answer should appear as if it was written today). – Enfield

This is a good use when you can't add quotes! – Quincyquindecagon

Answer 21

Sometimes you can pass multiple strings separated by a space and it will be interpreted as \n.

For example when using a shell script for multi-line notifcations:

#!/bin/bash
notify-send 'notification success' 'another line' 'time now '`date +"%s"`

Ajar

This is incorrect. It is never interpreted as \n. It is interpreted as a separate argument to the program, and the program itself may display that argument on a new line, but that doesn't mean that it was converted to \n at any point and is entirely dependent on the program. – Hexapartite

Answer 22

I would like to add that when you try to echo lines after running a process in the background, like some_script &, you lost the implicit \r (carriage return) in a new line so the output of:

some_script &
echo "firsf"
echo "second"

could be something like:

fist
    second

There is a line break, but not a "carriage return", to fix this, we could add \r:

echo -e 'fist\r'
echo -e 'second\r'

Agra

Answer 23

You can just use PHP_EOL

echo "Hello" . PHP_EOL . "World";

result in console :

Hello
World

Haileyhailfellowwellmet

Answer 24

Additional solution:

In cases, you have to echo a multiline of the long contents (such as code/ configurations)

For example:

• A Bash script to generate codes/ configurations

echo -e, printf might have some limitation

You can use some special char as a placeholder as a line break (such as ~) and replace it after the file was created using tr:

echo ${content} | tr '~' '\n' > $targetFile

It needs to invoke another program (tr) which should be fine, IMO.

Shelter

This is a poor solution. There is absolutely no need to invoke tr in this case. Furthermore, what if the text includes a ~ already? – Kilan

Answer 25

With jq:

$ jq -nr '"Hello,\nWorld"'
Hello,
World

Keratoplasty