linux shell leave spaces in variable

Question

I have a shell script which is supposed to create a file and fill two lines on it (to make it simple).

echo -e "#-*- coding: utf-8 -*-
    var1 = ''" > file1.py

This does work, but when I try to put file1.py content in a variable, then it shortens spaces and keeps only one space.

content="#-*- coding: utf-8 -*-
    var1 = ''"
echo -e $content > file1.py

:( please help

Answer 1

before execution the command is resolved to be:

echo -e this is what is inside the content variable > file1.py

therefore you just have to quote it again:

echo -e "$content" > file1.py

which results in:

echo -e "this is what is inside the content variable" > file1.py