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).