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SHTOOL-ECHO.TMP(1)          GNU Portable Shell Tool         SHTOOL-ECHO.TMP(1)

NAME
       shtool echo - GNU shtool echo(1) extensional command

SYNOPSIS
       shtool echo [-n|--newline] [-e|--expand] string

DESCRIPTION
       shtool echo is an echo(1) style command which prints string to stdout
       and optionally provides special expansion constructs (terminal bold
       mode, environment details, date, etc) and newline control. The trick of
       this command is that it provides a portable -n option and hides the
       gory details needed to find out the environment details under option
       -e.

OPTIONS
       The following command line options are available.

       -n, --newline
           By default, output is written to stdout followed by a "newline"
           (ASCII character 0x0a). If option -n is used, this newline
           character is omitted.

       -e, --expand
           If option -e is used, string can contain special "%x" constructs
           which are expanded before the output is written. Currently the
           following constructs are recognized:

           %B  switch terminal mode to bold display mode.

           %b  switch terminal mode back to normal display mode.

           %u  the current user name.

           %U  the current user id (numerical).

           %g  the current group name.

           %G  the current group id (numerical).

           %h  the current hostname (without any domain extension).

           %d  the current domain name.

           %D  the current day of the month.

           %M  the current month (numerical).

           %m  the current month name.

           %Y  the current year.

EXAMPLE
        #   shell script
        shtool echo -n -e "Enter your name [%B%u%b]: "; read name
        shtool echo -e "Your Email address might be %u@%h%d"
        shtool echo -e "The current date is %D-%m-%Y"

HISTORY
       The GNU shtool echo command was originally written by Ralf S.
       Engelschall <rse@engelschall.com> in 1998 for Website META Language
       (WML) under the name buildinfo. It was later taken over into GNU
       shtool.

SEE ALSO
       shtool(1), echo(1).

18-Jul-2008                      shtool 2.0.8               SHTOOL-ECHO.TMP(1)