Subject: Bug#4154: `echo' provides no way to unparse arguments

From: Ian Jackson <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 14 Aug 96 16:55 BST

Package: shellutils
Version: 1.12-5

/bin/echo does not support the `-' or `--' constructs for separating
non-option arguments from options.  Nor does it give a separate option
for this purpose (a la `-e' for grep).

This means that the only way to print strings that look like its
options is to use -e and the encode the first character of the string
- the hyphen - in octal !

Eg, the only way I can find to print the string `-n' followed by a
newline is to say:
 echo -e '\055n'
or
 echo -e -n '\055n\012'

This is clearly unacceptable.

Ian.