Multi-line string with extra space preserved indentation

Question

I want to write some pre-defined texts to a file with the following   text  this is line one n this is line two n this is line three   echo -e  text  gt  filename   I m expecting something like this   this is line one this is line two this is line three   But got this   this is line one  this is line two  this is line three   I m positive that there is no space after each  n  but how does the extra space come out

User · Answer

it will work if you put it as below   AA  first line  nsecond line   nthird line  echo  AA output  first line second line third line

User · Answer

in a bash script the following works      bin sh  text  this is line one nthis is line two nthis is line three  echo -e  text  gt  filename   alternatively   text  this is line one this is line two this is line three  echo   text   gt  filename   cat filename gives   this is line one this is line two this is line three

User · Answer

echo adds spaces between the arguments passed to it   text is subject to variable expansion and word splitting  so your echo command is equivalent to   echo -e  this   is   line   one n   this   is   line   two n         You can see that a space will be added before  this   You can either remove the newline characters  and quote  text to preserve the newlines   text  this is line one this is line two this is line three   echo   text   gt  filename   Or you could use printf  which is more robust and portable than echo   printf   s n   this is line one   this is line two   this is line three   gt  filename   In bash  which supports brace expansion  you could even do   printf   s n   this is line   one two three   gt  filename

User · Answer

Heredoc sounds more convenient for this purpose  It is used to send multiple commands to a command interpreter program like ex or cat  cat  lt  lt  EndOfMessage This is line 1  This is line 2  Line 3  EndOfMessage   The string after  lt  lt  indicates where to stop   To send these lines to a file  use   cat  gt   FILE  lt  lt - EOM Line 1  Line 2  EOM   You could also store these lines to a variable   read -r -d    VAR  lt  lt  EOM This is line 1  This is line 2  Line 3  EOM   This stores the lines to the variable named VAR   When printing  remember the quotes around the variable otherwise you won t see the newline characters   echo   VAR    Even better  you can use indentation to make it stand out more in your code  This time just add a - after  lt  lt  to stop the tabs from appearing   read -r -d    VAR  lt  lt - EOM     This is line 1      This is line 2      Line 3  EOM   But then you must use tabs  not spaces  for indentation in your code

User · Answer

I came hear looking for this answer but also wanted to pipe it to another command   The given answer is correct but if anyone wants to pipe it  you need to pipe it before the multi-line string like this echo   tee  tmp pipetest  lt  lt  EndOfMessage This is line 1  This is line 2  Line 3  EndOfMessage  This will allow you to have a multi line string but also put it in the stdin of a subsequent command

User · Answer

If you re trying to get the string into a variable  another easy way is something like this   USAGE   cat  lt  lt -END     This is line one      This is line two      This is line three  END     If you indent your string with tabs  i e     t    the indentation will be stripped out   If you indent with spaces  the indentation will be left in   NOTE  It is significant that the last closing parenthesis is on another line   The END text must appear on a line by itself

User · Answer

There are many ways to do it  For me  piping the indented string into sed works nicely    printf strip indent        printf   s    1    sed  s   s   g      printf strip indent  this is line one this is line two this is line three   gt   file txt    This answer was based on Mateusz Piotrowski s answer but refined a bit

User · Answer

Just to mention a simple one-line concatenation as it can be useful sometimes     for bash  v   guga     n     puga      Just for an example  v2  bar     n     foo     n   v     Let s simplify the previous version of  v2  n    n  v3  bar   n    foo   n  v   echo   v3     You ll get something like this   bar     foo   guga     puga    All leading and ending white spaces will be preserved right for  echo   v3   gt  filename

User · Answer

I ve found more solutions since I wanted to have every line properly indented    You may use echo   echo     this is line one            n  this is line two            n  this is line three         gt  filename   It does not work if you put   n  just before   on the end of a line  Alternatively  you can use printf for better portability  I happened to have a lot of problems with echo    printf   s n         this is line one           this is line two           this is line three         gt  filename  Yet another solution might be   text    text    text this is line one n  text    text this is line two n  text    text this is line three n  printf   b    text   gt  filename   or   text    text   this is line one n  text   this is line two n  text   this is line three n  printf   b    text   gt  filename  Another solution is achieved by  mixing printf and sed    if something then     printf   s        this is line one     this is line two     this is line three         sed  1d  d s        g  fi   It is not easy to refactor code formatted like this as you hardcode the indentation level into the code  It is possible to use a helper function and some variable substitution tricks   unset text       text    text   text              That s an empty line which demonstrates the reasoning behind    the usage of     instead of      in the variable substitution    above          this is line one     this is line two     this is line three  unset -f   printf   s    text

User · Answer

The following is my preferred way to assign a multi-line string to a variable  I think it looks nice    read -r -d    my variable  lt  lt                                                                                     String1 String2 String3     StringN                                                                                   The number of underscores is the same  here 80  in both cases

[string] Multi-line string with extra space (preserved indentation)

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