One of the driving goals for dash is that it be as POSIX-compliant as possible, which would specifically preclude treating -e (or any other "options") as anything other than a normal argument. printf is much more portable for interpreting escape sequences.
One of the driving goals for dash is that it be as POSIX-compliant as possible, which would specifically preclude treating -e (or any other "options") as anything other than a normal argument. printf is much more portable for interpreting escape sequences.