How to concatenate string containing a leading dash?

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

Is there a way to concatenate two strings, where the first string is "-n" and there is a space between the "-n" and the second string? Below are some examples of what I tried.

#!/bin/sh
var1=test

#working without dashes:
var2="n $var1"
echo $var2

var2=n" "$var1
echo $var2

var2="n "$var1
echo $var2

#not working with dashes:
var2="-n $var1"
echo $var2

var2=-n" "$var1
echo $var2

var2="-n "$var1
echo $var2

#not working with escaped dashes:
var2="\-n $var1"
echo $var2

var2=\-n" "$var1
echo $var2

var2="\-n "$var1
echo $var2

Thank you.

2

hi..
"-" is a shell metacharacter . So it needs strong quoting.
trying using single quotes '-n' or escape is using '\'.
Hope that works for you .
Regards.

3

whish shell are you using??
because i am not facing any problem in concat

home/fnsonlq0>var=test
home/fnsonlq0>var1="-n "$var
home/fnsonlq0>echo "$var1"
-n test
home/fnsonlq0>
4

vidyadhar85,
I am using the Debian Almquist shell (came with Ubuntu 9.04).

gaurav1086,
I retried with single quotes, but got the same results.

#not working with dashes
var2='-n $var1'
echo $var2

var2=-n' '$var1
echo $var2

var2='-n '$var1
echo $var2

#not working with escaped dashes
var2='\-n $var1'
echo $var2

var2=\-n' '$var1
echo $var2

var2='\-n '$var1
echo $var2
5 
var="-n"
printf -- "$var\n"
6

Thanks for all your suggestions. The echo string needed quotes. The following examples worked.

#!/bin/sh

#concatinating with leading dash  
#All output "-n test" (echo string needs quotes)

var1=test

var2="-n $var1"
echo "$var2"

var2=-n' '$var1
echo "$var2"

var2='-n '$var1
echo "$var2"

var2=\-n' '$var1
echo "$var2"

printf -- "$var2\n"