The echo
command is used to display text or the value of a variable in the terminal. When you use echo $”string”
, the double-quoted string is preceded by a dollar sign, which indicates that the string is an ANSI C-style string. This means that special characters in the string, such as newline, tab, or backslash, are interpreted as escape sequences.
For example, the following command will print a newline character:
echo $”string\n”
This is equivalent to:
echo -e “string\n”
The -e
option enables the interpretation of backslash escapes in the string.
In conclusion, using echo $”string”
allows you to display text with special characters, such as newlines and tabs, in a controlled way. It’s a useful tool for writing scripts that generate text output.