Echo tab characters in bash script

Question

How do I echo one or more tab characters using a bash script? When I run this code

res='       'x # res = "		x"
echo '['$res']' # expect [		x]

I get this

res=[ x] # that is [x]

user_55925 · Answer

echo -e ' 	 '

will echo 'space tab space newline' (-e means 'enable interpretation of backslash escapes'):

$ echo -e ' 	 ' | hexdump -C
00000000  20 09 20 0a                                       | . .|

user_36145 · Answer

You can also try:

echo Hello$'	'world.

user_50902 · Answer

Put your string between double quotes:

echo "[$res]"

Learning_18275 · Answer

you need to use -e flag for echo then you can

echo -e "		 x"

user_63514 · Answer

Using echo to print values of variables is a common Bash pitfall. Reference link: