Create a file with newlines in bash

Question

In bash, I have a string containing \n characters. When I echo -e $mystring it formats as I expect in the console, respecting the newline characters. However, when I redirect the output to a file, the resulting file is all one line, minus the \n characters, even if I use the -e flag:

echo -e $mystring > myfile.txt

However, tabs \t are respected. How can I get the formatting right in the file?

Answer 1

Double quotes (") should help.

$> mystring="\na\tb\nok"
$> echo -e "$mystring" > ./file
$> cat ./file 

a   b
ok

You should use \r\n instead of \n for "Windows newlines".

Answer 2

If you want text files that are created on *nix machines to be viewed on Windows machines then use the unix2dos utility.

If you want to view text files on *nix machines that are created on Windows machines then use dos2unix utility.