How to echo to console in Laravel and Artisan?

Don't know if you are using Laravel 3 or Laravel 4, and if its also possible in Laravel 3, but i found this in the docs.

$this->info('Creating sample users...');

EDIT

If you switch to database seeds you can use this to display a message

$this->command->info('Creating sample users...');

This works for me

use Symfony\Component\Console\Output\ConsoleOutput;

class MigrateData {

    public function up()
    {
        $output = new ConsoleOutput();

        for($i=0; $i<50000; $i++)
        {
             $output->writeln('Converting '.$i.' of 50000');
        }
     }
}

I have a migration which is converting a large table into a more efficient format and use this to get some progress while it works.