How do I echo “-e”?

Question

I want to echo a string that might contain the same parameters as echo. How can I do it without modifying the string?

For

Answer 1

Quote it:

$ var="-e something"
$ echo "$var"
-e something

If what you want is to get echo -e's behaviour (enable interpretation of backslash escapes), then you have to leave the $var reference without quotes:

$ var="hi\nho"
$ echo $var
hi
ho

Or use eval:

$ var="hi\nho"
$ eval echo \${var}
hi\nho

$ var="-e hi\nho"
$ eval echo \${var}
hi
ho