Output

echo

Print text to the pipeline with optional escape sequence expansion.

Syntax

echo [OPTIONS] [STRING...]

Flags

Flag	Description	Example
-n	Suppress trailing newline	echo -n 'no newline'
-e	Enable interpretation of escape sequences	echo -e 'line1\nline2'
-E	Disable interpretation of escape sequences (default)	echo -E 'literal \n'

Escape sequences (-e)

When -e is active, the following sequences are expanded:

Sequence	Meaning
\n	Newline
\t	Horizontal tab
\r	Carriage return
\a	Alert (bell)
\b	Backspace
\f	Form feed
\v	Vertical tab
\\	Literal backslash

Note

The current implementation does not support octal (\0NNN) or hex (\xHH) escape sequences. If you need those, use printf with format specifiers or PowerShell string literals.

Return type

PsBash.TextOutput with a single property:

Property	Type	Description
BashText	string	The formatted output text (includes trailing newline unless -n is used)

Examples

Basic output:

echo 'Hello, world!'

Hello, world!

Multiple arguments are joined with spaces:

echo one two three

one two three

Suppress trailing newline with -n:

echo -n 'prompt> '

prompt>

The output has no trailing newline, so subsequent output appears on the same line.

Escape sequences with -e:

echo -e 'column1\tcolumn2\nrow1\trow2'

column1  column2
row1  row2

Access the object programmatically:

$out = echo -n 'hello'
$out.BashText        # "hello"
$out.BashText.Length  # 5

Comparison

Bash

echo -e 'hello\tworld'
# hello  world

Bash echo behavior varies across implementations (GNU coreutils vs built-in). The -e flag is not POSIX-standard; some shells enable escapes by default.

PsBash

echo -e 'hello\tworld'
# hello  world

PsBash echo defaults to -E (no escape expansion), matching GNU coreutils behavior. The -e flag must be explicit.

PowerShell

Write-Output "hello`tworld"
# hello  world

Native PowerShell uses backtick escapes (`t, `n) inside double-quoted strings. Write-Output has no flag-based escape control.

---

printf

Format and print text using C-style format specifiers.

Syntax

printf FORMAT [ARGUMENTS...]

The FORMAT string is required. If no ARGUMENTS are provided, format specifiers consume nothing and produce empty output for that position.

Format specifiers

Specifier	Description	Example
%s	String	printf '%s' 'hello' produces hello
%d	Decimal integer	printf '%d' 42 produces 42
%f	Floating-point (6 decimal places)	printf '%f' 3.14 produces 3.140000
%%	Literal percent sign	printf '100%%' produces 100%

Note

The current implementation supports %s, %d, %f, and %%. Hex (%x), octal (%o), and width/precision modifiers (%-10s, %05d, %.2f) are not yet implemented. For those, use PowerShell’s -f operator or [string]::Format().

Escape sequences in FORMAT

The format string automatically expands the same escape sequences as echo -e:

Sequence	Meaning
\n	Newline
\t	Horizontal tab
\r	Carriage return
\a	Alert (bell)
\b	Backspace
\f	Form feed
\v	Vertical tab
\\	Literal backslash

Argument type conversion

printf automatically converts string arguments to the type required by the format specifier:

• Arguments that parse as integers are passed as [int] to %d
• Arguments that parse as decimals are passed as [double] to %f
• All other arguments remain as [string]

Return type

PsBash.TextOutput with a single property:

Property	Type	Description
BashText	string	The formatted output text (no automatic trailing newline)

Examples

Simple string formatting:

printf 'Hello, %s!\n' 'world'

Hello, world!

Multiple arguments with mixed types:

printf 'Name: %s, Age: %d, Score: %f\n' 'Alice' 30 95.5

Name: Alice, Age: 30, Score: 95.500000

Tab-separated table:

printf '%s\t%s\t%s\n' 'Name' 'Role' 'Team'
printf '%s\t%s\t%s\n' 'Alice' 'Dev' 'Platform'
printf '%s\t%s\t%s\n' 'Bob' 'QA' 'Platform'

Name  Role  Team
Alice  Dev  Platform
Bob  QA  Platform

Literal percent sign:

printf 'Disk usage: %d%%\n' 73

Disk usage: 73%

Access the object programmatically:

$out = printf '%s-%d' 'build' 42
$out.BashText  # "build-42"

Error handling

Calling printf with no arguments throws an error:

printf
# printf: usage: printf format [arguments]

Comparison

Bash

printf 'Name: %s, Count: %d\n' 'items' 5
# Name: items, Count: 5

Bash printf supports the full POSIX set of specifiers including %x, %o, %e, %g, width modifiers, and precision. It also reuses the format string if there are more arguments than specifiers.

PsBash

printf 'Name: %s, Count: %d\n' 'items' 5
# Name: items, Count: 5

PsBash printf supports %s, %d, %f, and %%. Unlike bash, it does not cycle the format string over excess arguments.

PowerShell

'Name: {0}, Count: {1}' -f 'items', 5
# Name: items, Count: 5

PowerShell uses .NET composite format strings with {0}, {1} placeholders and the -f operator. This supports full .NET format specifiers like {0:N2}, {1:X}, and padding via {0,-10}.