[SOLVED] How to cat text string and file in bash in way to preserve literal \newpage in output?

How to cat text string and file in bash in way to preserve literal \newpage in output?

I have multiple markdown files that I am trying to concatenate into one markdown file in bash. I can concatenate markdown files and preserve “\newpage” lines, but when trying to add a group title via a string calling echo to each group it wont preserve literal \newpage in file. I am bash beginner and learning as I go. How can I achieve this without making a file just storing group name with \newpage?

Examples of a single item in single markdown file

## Item 1 of group 1

Text to item 1 of group 1.

\newpage

## Item 2 of group 1

Text to item 2 of group 1.

\newpage

## Item 1 of group 2

Text to item 1 of group 2.

\newpage

Desired output after grouping all items under one group and adding a group title “Title of group 1” with \newpage at the end

# Title of group 1

\newpage

## Item 1 of group 1

Text to item 1 of group 1.

\newpage

## Item 2 of group 1

Text to item 2 of group 1.

\newpage

# Title of group 2

\newpage

## Item 1 of group 2

Text to item 2 of group 2.

\newpage

I can group items into each groups markdown file by using following code (this part works and \newpage is preserved:

dir_in="/path/do/input_directory/"
dir_out="/path/do/output_directory/"
file="group_1"
for f in ${dir_in}${file}/*.md; do cat $f >> ${dir_out}${file}.md; echo >> ${dir_out}${file}.md; done

How should I edit the code above so I could add a group name “# Title of group 1 \newpage” from string variable?

I tried making a title into a variable and echo with content of grouped markdown file.

title="#Title of group 1 \newpage"
content=$(cat "${dir_out}${file}.md")
result=$(echo "${title}\n\n${content}")
echo "$result" > ${dir_out}${file}.md

But echo interprets every \n and prints newlines out and leaves “ewpages" into file.

#Title of group 1

ewpage

Solution

$ title='#Title of group 1 \newpage'
$ printf '%s\n' "$title"
#Title of group 1 \newpage
$

See why-is-printf-better-than-echo to learn about the problems with echo, see https://mywiki.wooledge.org/Quotes to learn when to use single vs double vs no quotes and always run your code through http://shellcheck.net until you get more familiar with shell programming.