Echo a blank empty line to the console from a Windows batch file

Question

When outputting status messages to the console from a Windows batch file  I want to output blank lines to break up the output  How do I do this

User · Answer

Any of the below three options works for you:

echo[

echo(

echo.

For example:

@echo off
echo There will be a blank line below
echo[
echo Above line is blank
echo( 
echo The above line is also blank.
echo. 
echo The above line is also blank.

User · Answer

There is often the tip to use  echo    But that is slow  and it could fail with an error message  as cmd exe will search first for a file named  echo   without extension  and only when the file doesn t exists it outputs an empty line   You could use echo   This is approximately 20 times faster  and it works always  The only drawback could be that it looks odd   More about the different ECHO    variants is at DOS tips  ECHO  FAILS to give text or blank line

User · Answer

Note  Though my original answer attracted several upvotes  I decided that I could do much better  You can find my original  simplistic and misguided  answer in the edit history   If Microsoft had the intent of providing a means of outputting a blank line from cmd exe  Microsoft surely would have documented such a simple operation  It is this omission that motivated me to ask this question   So  because a means for outputting a blank line from cmd exe is not documented  arguably one should consider any suggestion for how to accomplish this to be a hack  That means that there is no known method for outputting a blank line from cmd exe that is guaranteed to work  or work efficiently  in all situations   With that in mind  here is a discussion of methods that have been recommended for outputting a blank line from cmd exe  All recommendations are based on variations of the echo command     echo    While this will work in many if not most situations  it should be avoided because it is slower than its alternatives and actually can fail  see here  here  and here   Specifically  cmd exe first searches for a file named echo and tries to start it  If a file named echo happens to exist in the current working directory  echo  will fail with    echo   is not recognized as an internal or external command  operable program or batch file      echo  echo    At the end of this answer  the author argues that these commands can be slow  for instance if they are executed from a network drive location  A specific reason for the potential slowness is not given  But one can infer that it may have something to do with accessing the file system   Perhaps because   and   have special meaning in a Windows file system path    However  some may consider these to be safe options since   and   cannot appear in a file name  For that or another reason  echo  is recommended by SS64 com here     echo  echo  echo  echo  echo  echo  echo  echo    This lengthy discussion includes what I believe to be all of these  Several of these options are recommended in this SO answer as well  Within the cited discussion  this post ends with what appears to be a recommendation for echo  and echo    My question at the top of this page does not specify a version of Windows  My experimentation on Windows 10 indicates that all of these produce a blank line  regardless of whether files named echo  echo   echo        echo  exist in the current working directory   Note that my question predates the release of Windows 10  So I concede the possibility that older versions of Windows may behave differently    In this answer   jeb asserts that echo  always works  To me   jeb s answer implies that other options are less reliable but does not provide any detail as to why that might be  Note that  jeb contributed much valuable content to other references I have cited in this answer     Conclusion  Do not use echo   Of the many other options I encountered in the sources I have cited  the support for these two appears most authoritative   echo  echo    But I have not found any strong evidence that the use of either of these will always be trouble-free     Example Usage    echo off echo Here is the first line  echo  echo There is a blank line above this line    Expected output   Here is the first line   There is a blank line above this line

[windows] Echo a blank (empty) line to the console from a Windows batch file

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