echo “-e” doesn't print anything

Question

I\'m using GNU bash, version 3.00.15(1)-release (x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu). And this command:

echo \"-e\" 

doesn\'t print anything. I guess

Answer 1

This is a tough one ;)

Usually you would use double dashes to tell the command that it should stop interpreting options, but echo will only output those:

$ echo -- -e
-- -e

You can use -e itself to get around the problem:

$ echo -e '\055e'
-e

Also, as others have pointed out, if you don't insist on using the bash builtin echo, your /bin/echo binary might be the GNU version of the tool (check the man page) and thus understand the POSIXLY_CORRECT environment variable:

$ POSIXLY_CORRECT=1 /bin/echo -e
-e

Answer 2

You could cheat by doing

echo "-e "

That would be dash, e, space.

Alternatively you can use the more complex, but more precise:

echo -e \\\\x2De

Answer 3

There may be a better way, but this works:

printf -- "-e\n"

Answer 4

 
[root@scintia mail]# POSIXLY_CORRECT=1; export POSIXLY_CORRECT
[root@scintia mail]# /bin/echo "-e"
-e
[root@scintia mail]#