how to add empty line in text file using shell script? [closed]

Question

This is my code; the "test.txt" file contains more empty lines and empty space apart from tab. I want to remove that empty space and empty lines as well but I need one empty line before starting st^. How to do it?

sed "s/^[ ]*//" -i  test.txt
cat $2 > /tmp/tt.txt
sed '/^$/d' test.txt > /tmp/tt.txt
echo " " >> test.txt
echo " " >>  /tmp/tt.txt
mv /tmp/tt.txt  test.txt

I am getting output like:

    st^flower
     p^rose
     p^jasmine
    st^animals 
     p^bear
     p^elephant

I want output like:

    st^flower
     p^rose
     p^jasmine

    st^animals 
     p^bear
     p^elephant

Answer 1

To output empty line use this:

echo -en '\n'

e - interprets \n

n - outputs no empty line on the end, so there is no mess with double empty lines

Use single quotes to prevent shell from interpreting chars as end of line.

Answer 2

echo -e "\n"

With double quotes, it must work