You are right. echo isn't as portable as printf and you are right to point it out.
I'm using it since I have echo available on my operating system and it is a little bit easier to use than printf. And for most GNU/Linux distributions out there, this is also the case. This article is also an opportunity for people not confortable with Shell scripts to discover some of its utility programs so I figured why not. Two birds one stone, right?
If someone is using a distribution that does not include echo, I'll assume this person is also aware of how to edit this script and make it portable again so I didn't worry about it too much when writing this article.
But again you are totally right about its portability. Especially when it comes to using echo with ZSH or in Bash.
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I'm more on about things like echo -n not being portable than echo itself not existing. It does different things depending on the shell, and if you try to stick to POSIX you're not going to use those options anyway.
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Hi Ben and thanks for your answer!
You are right.
echoisn't as portable asprintfand you are right to point it out.I'm using it since I have
echoavailable on my operating system and it is a little bit easier to use thanprintf. And for most GNU/Linux distributions out there, this is also the case. This article is also an opportunity for people not confortable with Shell scripts to discover some of its utility programs so I figured why not. Two birds one stone, right?If someone is using a distribution that does not include
echo, I'll assume this person is also aware of how to edit this script and make it portable again so I didn't worry about it too much when writing this article.But again you are totally right about its portability. Especially when it comes to using
echowith ZSH or in Bash.I'm more on about things like
echo -nnot being portable thanechoitself not existing. It does different things depending on the shell, and if you try to stick to POSIX you're not going to use those options anyway.