Question: I'm trying to configure a file with a bash script. And the variables in the bash script are not written in file as it is written in script.

Ex:

```
#!/bin/bash

printf "%s" "template("$DATE\t$HOST\t$PRIORITY\t$MSG\n")" >> /file.txt

exit 0

```

This results to template('tttn') instead of template("$DATE\t$HOST\t$PRIORITY\t$MSG\n in file.

How do I write in the script so that the result is template("$DATE\t$HOST\t$PRIORITY\t$MSG\n in the configured file? 

Is it possible to write variable as it looks in script to file?

Answer: 
Enclose the strings you want to write within single quotes to avoid variable replacement.

```
> FOO=bar
> echo "$FOO"
bar
> echo '$FOO'
$FOO
> 

```
There are several escaping issues and the power of `printf` has not been used, try

```
printf 'template(%s\t%s\t%s\t%s)\n' "${DATE}" "${HOST}" "${PRIORITY}" "${MSG}" >> file.txt

```

Reasons for this separate answer:

* The accepted answer does not fit the title of the question (see comment).
* The post with the right answer
	+ contains wrong claims about `echo` vs `printf` as of [this post](https://askubuntu.com/a/467756/937632) and
	+ is not robust against whitespace in the values.
* The edit queue is full at the moment.