Echo Command in Linux

One of the highly used yet simple linux commands to print simple output is echo. Linux echo command allows you to print Linux environment variables, create new files, add contents to an existing file and much more.

• Print Linux Variable Value

• Print Text Containing Double Quotes

• Print Text Containing Single Quotes

• Print Text in Multiple Lines

• Print Special Characters

• Create New File or Append

• Print Output in Specific Colour

Print Linux Variable Value

To print stored value of a Linux environment variables

echo $SHELL
echo $HOSTNAME

To print variable value with attached characters, use { }

export TITLE=MR.
echo "$TITLEjohn"                          --> No output
echo "${TITLE}john"                        
Mr.john                                    --> output

To print output of a command, enclose command in ( )

echo "Today's date is $(date)"

Print Text Containing Double Quotes

To print a double quote, enclose it within single quotes or use backslash

echo 'This is "Linux"'
or
echo "This is \"Linux\""

Print Text Containing Single Quotes

To print a single quote, enclose it within double quotes

echo "This is 'Linux'"

Print Text in Multiple Lines

To print text in multiple lines, use \n character with -e option

echo -e "Dear Sir \n Welcome"

Print Special Characters

Let's take you would like to actually print $NAME with echo command

echo "Use \$NAME variable"

Use $NAME variable                        --> output

The backslash (\) will print $ as is and will not consider $NAME as a variable

Create New File or Append

Use > to create a new file (or overwrite existing file)

echo "These are the file contents." > new_file.out

Use >> to append at the end of an existing file

echo "This is second line in the file." >> new_file.out

Print Output in Specific Colour

To print output in specific colour in Linux use below commands

echo -e "\033[1;37mThis is WHITE colour"
echo -e "\033[0;34mThis is BLUE colour"
echo -e "\033[0;32mThis is GREEN colour"
echo -e "\033[0;31mThis is RED colour"
echo -e "\033[0;33mThis is YELLOW colour"
echo -e "\033[1;30mThis is GRAY colour"

Enjoy! 🏀🏀🏀