bash - echo that outputs to stderr

Is there a standard Bash tool that acts like echo but outputs to stderr rather than stdout?

I know I can do echo foo 1>&2 but it's kinda ugly and, I suspect, error prone (e.g. more likely to get edited wrong when things change).

Answer

You could do this, which facilitates reading:

>&2 echo "error"

>&2 copies file descriptor #2 to file descriptor #1. Therefore, after this redirection is performed, both file descriptors will refer to the same file: the one file descriptor #2 was originally referring to. For more information see the Bash Hackers Illustrated Redirection Tutorial.