ECHO(1)

📦 version 0.12.0, in arch rolling

💬 ECHO(1) — the "say it out loud" era 💬

ok so bestie, this is echo, from the General Commands Manual section, and honestly? she's the moment. like the simplest little icon and yet she runs half your shell scripts. no cap. 🎀

✨ NAME ✨

echo — display a line of text

that's it. that's the whole job. display a line of text. she ate and left no crumbs. 💅

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

echo [OPTIONS]... [STRING]...

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

display a line of text 🫶

literally that's what it does. you give her words, she says them back to you. main character energy from a utility that's been around forever and still slays.

💖 OPTIONS 💖

  • -n — do not output the trailing newline. like, she'll say the thing but she won't hit enter at the end. lowkey obsessed with this one, it's giving "I said what I said, no final punctuation." 💀
  • -e — enable interpretation of backslash escapes. this is the fun one, bestie — now all those little \n and \t situations actually do something instead of just sitting there looking cute.
  • -E — disable interpretation of backslash escapes (this is the default, so if you don't say anything she just vibes with escapes off) 🙈
  • -h, --help — print help. she'll explain herself to you. communication queen. 👑
  • -V, --version — print version. she'll tell you which era of herself you're running.
  • [STRING] — the actual text, the whole reason we're here. put your words here and she'll echo them out. ✨

🔥 EXTRA 🔥

echo the STRING(s) to standard output. that's the whole ritual: you speak, she outputs. 🫶

now — and this is the important part — if -e is in effect, the following sequences are recognized (and yes, they're all literal and they're all iconic):

  • \\ — backslash
  • \a — alert (BEL) 🔔
  • \b — backspace
  • \c — produce no further output
  • \e — escape
  • \f — form feed
  • \n — new line
  • \r — carriage return
  • \t — horizontal tab
  • \v — vertical tab
  • \0NNN — byte with octal value NNN (1 to 3 digits)
  • \xHH — byte with hexadecimal value HH (1 to 2 digits)
bestie note: none of these do anything unless -e is on. -E is the default and -E means "no thanks, I'm good." so if your escapes are just sitting there doing nothing? that's why. not a bug, she's just being her default self. 💜

⭐ VERSION ⭐

v(uutils coreutils) 0.12.0

and that's the whole page, bestie! 🍓✨

date on the calendar for this one: 2026-09-17. the source said it plain, so I'm saying it cute: this is ECHO(1) from the uutils coreutils crew, version 0.12.0, dated 2026-09-17. 🧚💖 go forth and echo, you absolute legend. 🌈👑

📦 where this page comes from