Just looking for the exact same thing. You can use:
# -r and -e options are unrelated to the answer.
read -rep $'Please Enter a Message:\n' message
And it will work exactly as asked:
Please enter a Message:
_
Here is an extract from the bash manpage explaining it:
Words of the form $’string’ are treated specially. The word expands to
string, with backslash-escaped characters replaced as specified by the
ANSI C standard. Backslash escape sequences, if present, are decoded
as follows:
- (…)
- \n new line
- (…)
The expanded result is single-quoted, as if the dollar sign had not
been present.
Took me a while to find out.
Note that single quotes and double quotes behave differently in this regard:
A double-quoted string preceded by a dollar sign ($) will cause the
string to be translated according to the current locale. If the cur-
rent locale is C or POSIX, the dollar sign is ignored. If the string
is translated and replaced, the replacement is double-quoted.