Bug#48247: echo -n
On Mon, Oct 25, 1999 at 03:03:34AM -0400, Raul Miller wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 25, 1999 at 04:51:42PM +1000, Herbert Xu wrote:
> > IMHO it does. Firstly it's clear from the wording that all "options"
> > come under the operands category.
>
> It's clear from the wording that only for the -- option is this behavior
> guaranteed.
Let me quote it again:
4.19.1 Synopsis
echo [string ...]
<...deleted...>
4.19.4 Operands
The following operands shall be supported by the implementation:
string A string to be written to standard output. If the first
operand is "-n" or if any of the operands contain a
backslash (\) character, the results are implementation
defined.
4.19.6.1 Standard Output
The echo utility arguments shall be separated by single <space>s and a
<newline> character shall follow the last argument.
So, unless the first operand is -n, or if the string contains backslash
characters, the operands are to be written to the standard output verbatim
separated by sngle spaces with a new line at the end. If the first operand
is -n, or if there are backslash characters, anything can happen.
Applying this to the case
echo -e hello
the first operand is not -n and there are no backslashes, so the output must
be
-e hello
--
Debian GNU/Linux 2.1 is out! ( http://www.debian.org/ )
Email: Herbert Xu ~{PmV>HI~} <herbert@gondor.apana.org.au>
Home Page: http://gondor.apana.org.au/~herbert/
PGP Key: http://gondor.apana.org.au/~herbert/pubkey.txt
Reply to: