Echo tab characters in bash script

Question

How do I echo one or more tab characters using a bash script? When I run this code

res=\'       \'x # res = \"\\t\\tx\"
echo \'[\'$res\']\' # expect [\\t\\tx         


        

Answer 1

Using echo to print values of variables is a common Bash pitfall. Reference link:

http://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashPitfalls#echo_.24foo