Getting slash is a directory error while running echo in bash

Question

I am trying to output following ascii character art every time my terminal loads:

   __  __                  _
  / / / /___  ____ _____ _(_)
 / / / / __ \/ __ / /
/ /_/ / / / / /_/ / /_/ / /
\____/_/ /_/\__,_/\__, /_/
                 /____/

So I added following at the end of .bashrc :

echo "   __  __                  _ 
  / / / /___  ____ _____ _(_)
 / / / / __ \/ __ `/ __ `/ / 
/ /_/ / / / / /_/ / /_/ / /  
\____/_/ /_/\__,_/\__, /_/   
                 /____/      "

And it prints:

It seems that it is misinterpreting slash in ascii art as escape sequence, that why it is printing -bash: /: Is a directory . How can I get rid of it? If I add something simple to .bashrc , like echo "Hello World!!" , it does not print this error message.

Answer 1

Use the single quote instead:

echo \
'   __  __                  _ 
  / / / /___  ____ _____ _(_)
 / / / / __ \/ __ `/ __ `/ / 
/ /_/ / / / / /_/ / /_/ / /  
\____/_/ /_/\__,_/\__, /_/   
                 /____/      
'

Answer 2

Try like this:

text=(
    '   __  __                  _'
    '  / / / /___  ____ _____ _(_)'
    ' / / / / __ \/ __ `/ __ `/ /'
    '/ /_/ / / / / /_/ / /_/ / /'
    '\____/_/ /_/\__,_/\__, /_/'
    '                 /____/'
)

printf '%s\n' "${text[@]}"

Answer 3

For a multi-line text literal, a HereDoc is very appropriate:

# Use a quoted heredoc 'marker' to disable expansion of backticks
cat <<'LOGO'
   __  __                  _
  / / / /___  ____ _____ _(_)
 / / / / __ \/ __ `/ __ `/ /
/ /_/ / / / / /_/ / /_/ / /
\____/_/ /_/\__,_/\__, /_/
                 /____/
LOGO

Un-quoted heredoc marker:

cat <<EOF 
hello `echo world`
EOF

Output:

hello world

Quoted heredoc 'marker':

cat <<'EOF'
hello `echo world`
EOF

Output:

hello `echo world`