How to Echo New Line in Bash

Fumbani Banda Feb 02, 2024
  1. Bash echo command
  2. Echo New Line in Bash With -e
  3. Echo New Line in Bash With $
How to Echo New Line in Bash

This tutorial will show the different ways to print a new line in bash using -e and $ with the echo command.

Bash echo command

Bash echo command is a command that is used to print output to the terminal.

echo 'I love working in Linux'

Output:

I love working in Linux

Echo New Line in Bash With -e

The echo command does not recognize the new line character by default. To print a new line in bash, we need to enable the echo command to interpret a new line character by adding the -e option.

Using echo to print a new line with the -e option may not work on all systems. In some systems, the -e option may be ignored. A better way to print a new line is to use printf.

echo 'This is the first line \nThis is the second line'

Output:

This is the first line \nThis is the second line
echo -e 'This is the first line \nThis is the second line'

Output:

This is the first line
This is the second line

Echo New Line in Bash With $

We can use the $ before the new line character, which is inside single quotes, to print a new line with echo.

echo This is the first line$'\n'This is the second line

Output:

This is the first line
This is the second line
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Fumbani is a tech enthusiast. He enjoys writing on Linux and Python as well as contributing to open-source projects.

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