Ubuntu – How to get help for “echo” or other bash commands

command linedocumentation

man echo works. but out of curiosity, does echo have something similar to a --help flag/parameter?

Best Answer

Assuming you are using bash, echo is a shell builtin (which you can see by running type echo). That means the man-page you want to read is man bash. Or you can get help on bash builtins and keywords with the help builtin, e.g. help echo.

The information you see when you run man echo, is for the external echo command, installed by GNU coreutils. (type -a echo).

To learn bash, read http://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashGuide

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Linking to man page sections

Yes, there is, it's http://man.cx/. It aims to have all man pages in one site, also in multiple languages. The anchors are unfortunately not named, but numbered: for example http://man.cx/printf#heading1 will take you to the first heading of the printf man page. Still I think it's better than without anchors ;)

PS. Add the site to your search engines, then you can simply type man printf in your address bar, and it will take you to the correct page, super awesome!

Ubuntu – Bash scripting problem on echo -ing the current working directory

You have to use

echo "This directory is called $(pwd)"

What you are trying to do is called command substitution. This used to be done using backticks (` `), but the currently recommended way is using $().

You can find a detailed explanation in this wiki page.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Linking to man page sections

Ubuntu – Bash scripting problem on echo -ing the current working directory

Related Question