Unwanted line break using echo and cat

Question

I\'m trying to add a line at the beginning of a file, using

echo \'time/F:x1:x2\' | cat - file.txt>newfile.txt

But this produces line breaks

Answer 1

Actually you don't even need the echo and pipe if you're using bash. Just use a herestring:

<<< 'time/F:x1:x2' cat - file.txt > newfile.txt