Shell Programming and Scripting

Hi All,

I am attempting to create a fixed length tilde delimited file using printf.
The variables are initialized to fixed length blank spaces

Code:

a='                      '
b='          '
c='          '
d='          '

Sometimes the variable might contain values and sometimes they are blank. But when the variables do not have values it doesn't work properly.

Code:

I have tried this script:
printf "%22s%s%10f%s%10f%s%10f%s" "$a" "~" "$b" "~" "$c" "~" "$d" "~" >>res.dat
 
And also:
printf "%22s%s%10f%s%10f%s%10f%s" $a "~" $b "~" $c "~" $d "~" >>res.dat

But nothing works. Can anyone fix the above statement.
Thanks!!

In what manner does it "not work"?

You don't need to initialize the variables to anything, especially since that may end up making them longer than you want.

%10f won't do what you want either. Treat them all as strings.

I'd make the ~ part of the format string so you don't need to put int 9 identical options to separate 10 fields.

You forgot to put a \n on the end.

Code:

printf "%22s~%10s~%10s~%10s~\n" a 3.14159 a b c

If a variable is blank, It gives an error < Specify a number instead of '~' >

Put the variable in quotes. "$a"

Hi Corona,

have done the same in my first printf statment, but it isn't working.shows the same error.

Show exactly what you're doing, word for word, letter for letter, keystroke for keystroke, please.

%10f makes no more sense now than it did then, so do correct your statement as well...