How can I have a newline in a string in sh?

Question

This

STR=\"Hello\\nWorld\"
echo $STR

produces as output

Hello\\nWorld

instead of

Hello
Wo         


        

Answer 1

The problem isn't with the shell. The problem is actually with the echo command itself, and the lack of double quotes around the variable interpolation. You can try using echo -e but that isn't supported on all platforms, and one of the reasons printf is now recommended for portability.

You can also try and insert the newline directly into your shell script (if a script is what you're writing) so it looks like...

#!/bin/sh
echo "Hello
World"
#EOF

or equivalently

#!/bin/sh
string="Hello
World"
echo "$string"  # note double quotes!