How do I force the ECHO command to echo?
The ECHO built-in command,
how much simpler could it get?
It takes whatever you put on the command line and prints it.
And yet it's not that simple.
For example, the ECHO must be careful not to compress
whitespace, because people will write
ECHO Some text
ECHO Indented text
ECHO ---- underlined
and when you execute this, the result had better be
Some text
Indented text
---- underlined
and not
Some text
Indented text
---- underlined
But what if you want to echo a blank line or the word "ON" or "OFF"
or a slash and a question mark?
C:\> ECHO ON
C:\> ECHO
ECHO is on.
C:\> ECHO /?
Displays messages, or turns command-echoing on or off.
...
To force the ECHO command not to interpret its
arguments, put a dot immediately after the word "echo":
C:\> ECHO. ON
ON
C:\> ECHO.
C:\> ECHO./?
/?
This is what happens when a language develops not by design but
by evolution.
It becomes filled with all sorts of strange quirks in order
to accommodate new behavior while remaining compatible with
old behavior.
Nobody actually likes the batch language; they just are used to it.
