printf

Bash: using printf to display fixed-width padded string


Categories: Linux

One way to implement character padding in Bash is to use printf and substring extraction.  This can be especially useful in reports or menu display. Given a $padding variable that contains the maximum length of characters, you can subtract out the length of a display string like below. # length of maximum padding padding=”………………………………..” printf … Bash: using printf to display fixed-width padded string

Bash: using multiple values from an input pipeline to construct and execute a command


Categories: Scripting

If you have multiple values coming through the Bash input pipeline, it can be difficult to process these into a complex, formatted set of arguments unless you use intermediate temporary files. But one way to neatly put together a complex set of arguments from an input pipeline with multiple values is to use awk printf … Bash: using multiple values from an input pipeline to construct and execute a command