On Sat, 12 Jul 2008, Raphael Geissert wrote: > Package: debian-policy > Version: 3.0.8.1 > Severity: wishlist > > As demonstrated by the following trivia[1], and also mentioned by SUSv3, the > echo built-in varies from implementation to implementation and thus should be > discouraged.
Well, you just proved that you can't rely on correct interpretation of special escaped characters and that's true. It's not a reason to discourage echo or echo -n in general though. That would be ridiculous given how frequently it's used. But it would be nice to remember that printf "" must be used if you want to reliably use escaped characters. But here you must take care to use "%s" for each variable expansion: echo "a $var\n b" is printf "a %s\n b\n" "$var" Cheers, -- Raphaël Hertzog Le best-seller français mis à jour pour Debian Etch : http://www.ouaza.com/livre/admin-debian/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
