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user271115
Asked: 2014-04-20 11:13:37 +0800 CST

Command that displays a string argument

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What command will return whatever value is given to it. For example, you would enter the command followed by the string Hello World and it will print Hello World to the console.

Does such a command exist, and what is it?

command-line

3 Answers

  1. echo "Hello World "

    or

    printf "Hello World "

    or (not for newbies):

    str="Hello World" && "$str" |& grep -o "$str"
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  2. Do you mean echoing?

    echo GoodMorning

    prints GoodMorning

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  3. In addition to the echo and printf shell builtins, if for some obscure reason you cannot use them, you also have cat. If you combine it with Here Strings, you can have it print the input you give it:

    cat <<<"Hello World"

    In fact, there are many commands that can do this if you twist their arm a little:

    $ tr '' '' <<<"Hello World"
Hello World
$ sort  <<<"Hello World"
Hello World
$ tee  <<<"Hello World"
Hello World
$ xargs  <<<"Hello World"
Hello World
$ more  <<<"Hello World"
Hello World
$ fold  <<<"Hello World"
Hello World

    Most of the above (and the list if far from complete) are designed to do something with their input and here we are asking them to basically do nothing, so they print it unchanged.

    This answer is mostly for illustrative purposes and is a bit tongue-in-cheek. In real life, just use printf or echo, that's their job.

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