echo test > file. how to make test not have an enter after?

bash echo command prevent newline after output

Refined the query to specify the context (bash) and the desired behavior (prevent newline) for more focused and relevant results.

To prevent the echo command from adding a newline character after your output in a Bash script, you can utilize the -n option. Here is a detailed explanation of how to do this effectively, along with code examples.

Using the -n Option

When using the echo command in Bash, by default, it appends a newline character at the end of the output. To avoid this and write output to a file without a trailing newline, you can follow this syntax:

echo -n "test" > file

Explanation of the Command:

  • echo: This command is used to display a line of text or a variable's value.
  • -n: This option tells echo not to output the trailing newline.
  • "test": This is the string you want to write to the file.
  • >: This redirection operator sends the output to the specified file.
  • file: The name of the file where the output will be written.

Example in Practice

Let's say you want to create a file named output.txt and write "Hello, World!" to it without a trailing newline:

echo -n "Hello, World!" > output.txt

Verifying the Output

After running the command, you can check the content of output.txt to confirm that it contains "Hello, World!" without an extra newline by using:

cat -A output.txt

The -A flag with cat shows non-printing characters, allowing you to see if any newline characters are present. You should see Hello, World!$ indicating that there are no trailing newlines (where $ indicates the end of the line).

Conclusion

By using the -n option with the echo command, you can effectively suppress the trailing newline, ensuring that your intended output is written directly to the file as desired. This method is straight-forward and widely used in shell scripting to format output precisely.

Sources

10
1
How can I 'echo' out things without a newline?
Stack Overflow

Yes. Use the -n option: echo -n "$x". From help echo : -n do not append a newline. This would strips off the last newline too, ...

2
2.4. Writing Output Without the Newline - bash Cookbook ...
Oreilly

With the echo command there are two ways to eliminate the newline. First, the -n option suppresses the trailing newline. The echo command also has several ...

3
[SOLVED] How to remove the newline in bash commands ...
Bbs

I'd like to print the result of a command like 'cut' to console without the newline character at the end, much like 'echo -n' does.

4
shell: keep trailing newlines ('\n') in command substitution
Unix

I want to be able to capture the exact output of a command substitution, including the trailing new line characters.

5
I'm confused about why echo eliminates new lines : r/bash
Reddit

echo $(cat file1.file) eliminates all the line feeds and prints all the words with just a white space between them. Can someone explain to me why that is?

6
Retain \n as plain text instead of new line in bash script
Superuser

I am trying to build a bash script that concatenates all these lines into one single line delimited by \n (actual text and not new line) to pass it as a field ...

7
How to preserve line breaks when storing command output ...
Stack Overflow

With shell scripting, one needs to always quote variables, especially when working with strings. Here is an example of the problem.

8
How to Use echo Command Without Newline
Linuxhandbook

Every time you use echo, it adds a newline character at the end. Here's what you can do if you want to use echo without newline.

9
bash - How to print "-n" without issuing a newline?
Askubuntu

The best solution IMHO is echo -e "-n\c" It does not add any extra characters. echo -e "-n\n" prints the same but with a new line char.

10
echo — print strings - Gentoo Development Guide
Devmanual

If one wants to exclude the trailing newline character, the -n option can be passed, as in: echo -n "no trailing newline" . Special characters, like tabs ( \t ) ...