Multi-line string with extra space (preserved indentation)

Heredoc sounds more convenient for this purpose. It is used to send multiple commands to a command interpreter program like ex or cat

cat << EndOfMessage
This is line 1.
This is line 2.
Line 3.
EndOfMessage

The string after << indicates where to stop.

To send these lines to a file, use:

cat > $FILE <<- EOM
Line 1.
Line 2.
EOM

You could also store these lines to a variable:

read -r -d '' VAR << EOM
This is line 1.
This is line 2.
Line 3.
EOM

This stores the lines to the variable named VAR.

When printing, remember the quotes around the variable otherwise you won't see the newline characters.

echo "$VAR"

Even better, you can use indentation to make it stand out more in your code. This time just add a - after << to stop the tabs from appearing.

read -r -d '' VAR <<- EOM
    This is line 1.
    This is line 2.
    Line 3.
EOM

But then you must use tabs, not spaces, for indentation in your code.

If you're trying to get the string into a variable, another easy way is something like this:

USAGE=$(cat <<-END
    This is line one.
    This is line two.
    This is line three.
END
)

If you indent your string with tabs (i.e., '\t'), the indentation will be stripped out. If you indent with spaces, the indentation will be left in.

NOTE: It is significant that the last closing parenthesis is on another line. The END text must appear on a line by itself.

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