repeat character with printf

ripat · #1 (**permalink**) 12-13-2007

It's all in the subject. I try to figure out how to repeat a character a number of time with printf.

For example to draw a line in a script output.

Thks

rikxik · #2 (**permalink**) 12-13-2007

I didn't know repeating characters was printf's speciality

If you don't mind using perl, this should be ok:

Code:

$ perl -e 'print "-" x 25,"\n"'
-------------------------

HTH

ripat · #3 (**permalink**) 12-13-2007

Thanks. I was hoping to find some pure bash solution like padding with a custom character like in PHP

Code:

printf("%'#10s\n",  '');

Still looking.

radoulov · #4 (**permalink**) 12-13-2007

ksh93/bash:

Code:

for i in {1..100};do printf "%s" "#";done;printf "\n"

zsh:

Code:

repeat 100 printf "#";print

or:

ksh93/zsh and bash:

Code:

ch="$(printf "%100s" "")"
printf "%s\n" "${ch// /#}"

bash3

Code:

printf -vch  "%100s" ""
printf "%s\n" "${ch// /#}"

and another one with zsh:

Code:

print "${$(printf "%100s" "")// /#}"

ripat · #5 (**permalink**) 12-13-2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by radoulov

Code:

printf -vch  "%100s" ""
printf "%s\n" "${ch// /#}"

I like that one. The best I could come up with was this:

Code:

LINE="########################################################"
echo ${LINE,0,15}

Thank you.

radoulov · #6 (**permalink**) 12-13-2007

Sorry,
in zsh it could be just like this

Code:

print ${(l:100::#:)}

cfajohnson · #7 (**permalink**) 10-29-2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by radoulov

ksh93/bash:

Code:

for i in {1..100};do printf "%s" "#";done;printf "\n"

That doesn't work in the ksh93 I have.

The function the OP referred to (from my book) concatenates 3 instances on each iteration.

Quote:

bash3

Code:

printf -vch  "%100s" ""
printf "%s\n" "${ch// /#}"

That's a nice idea.

I used it (somewhat modified) in a couple of functions so that the character and number of repetitions can be easily specified:

The first function stores the result in a variable, by default $_REPEAT.

The second prints the result.
Code:
_repeat() ## USAGE: _repeat STRING NUM [VAR]
{
 eval "printf -v ${3:-_REPEAT} '$1%.0s' {1..$2}"
}

repeat() ## USAGE: repeat STRING NUM
{
 eval "printf '$1%.0s' {1..$2} "
 echo
}

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