Bash string with newline

If you’re using the Bash shell:

$ echo $0
bash

You may notice that newline characters are escaped in strings:

$ echo "hello\nworld"
hello\nworld

echo

To preserve the newline in echo, you can set option -e:

$ echo -e 'hello\nworld'
hello
world

Alternatively, you can assign the newline character to a variable:

$ NL=$'\n'

And then substitute it via parameter expansion:

$ echo "hello${NL}world"
hello
world

Make sure to use double quotes "..." or else your variable reference won’t be expanded.