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From: ado@elsie.UUCP (Arthur David Olson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: ECHO blank line?
Message-ID: <7466@elsie.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 22-Aug-87 20:05:30 EDT
Article-I.D.: elsie.7466
Posted: Sat Aug 22 20:05:30 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 23-Aug-87 13:44:25 EDT
References: <278@laticorp.UUCP> <1290@cognos.UUCP>
Organization: NIH-LEC, Bethesda, MD
Lines: 15
Summary: echo. does not echo an empty line

> > Does anyone know the definitive way to get ECHO to echo a blank line?
> 
>    I don't know if its the definitive way or not, but "echo." (no space
> between echo and the dot) will do the trick.  This works in DOS 3.1 'fer
> sure.

Good enough.  Now--how about echoing an *empty* line?  Use the command
	echo. > result
then examine the result file and note the space character at the beginning
of the file.  Is that space character important?  You bet.  Try
	echo. | date
(which ought to allow you to display the date without getting prompted
for a new date) to see why.
-- 
UUCP: elsie!ado		Elsie and Ado are trademarks of Borden, Inc. and Ampex.