Escape sequences with “echo -e” in different shells

I just noticed that it seems like the flag -e does not exist for the echo command in my shell on Linux.
Is this just a messed up setting or is it “normal”?

Some code as an example:

#!/bin/sh
echo -e "e[3;12re[3H"

Prints:

-e e[3;12re[3H

This worked before! I guess some stty commands went terribly wrong and now it does not work anymore. Somebody suggested that my sh was actually just bash.

Answers:

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Method 1

Because you used sh, not bash, then echo command in sh doesn’t have option -e. From sh manpage:

echo [-n] args...
            Print the arguments on the standard output, separated by spaces.
            Unless the -n option is present, a newline is output following the
            arguments.

And it doesn’t have e, too:

        If any of the following sequences of characters is encountered
        during output, the sequence is not output.  Instead, the specified
        action is performed:

        b      A backspace character is output.

        c      Subsequent output is suppressed.  This is normally used at
                the end of the last argument to suppress the trailing new‐
                line that echo would otherwise output.

        f      Output a form feed.

        n      Output a newline character.

        r      Output a carriage return.

        t      Output a (horizontal) tab character.

        v      Output a vertical tab.

        digits
                Output the character whose value is given by zero to three
                octal digits.  If there are zero digits, a nul character
                is output.

        \      Output a backslash.

        All other backslash sequences elicit undefined behaviour.

Method 2

-e is not POSIX (in fact, POSIX echo generally accepts no options, though it is allowed to support -n, see here), and /bin/sh on your system appears to be a POSIX shell. -e is an extension accepted in some shells, but you shouldn’t rely on it, it’s not portable. Ideally, use printf, or switch to using a shell which has echo -e.

Also see the caveats of e in the comments below, which should be replaced with 33.

printf '33[3;12r33[3H'

Method 3

Note that at any time and in almost any shell, you can figure out which “echo” will be called by typing type echo or which echo. It’s usually a shell builtin. So it depends on which “echo” is installed and on which shell you’re using.

All methods was sourced from stackoverflow.com or stackexchange.com, is licensed under cc by-sa 2.5, cc by-sa 3.0 and cc by-sa 4.0