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Top Forums Shell Programming and Scripting How printf handles empty variables Post 302188884 by Skyybugg on Thursday 24th of April 2008 12:53:20 PM
Old 04-24-2008
How printf handles empty variables

See attached file that includes code, input and output.

I am processing a colon delimited input file and building a ":" (colon) delimited output file.
My printf statement prints contents of each of 20 variables and puts them into a record file. I am pushing out approximately 120 records.
The problem is that if any of those happens to be empty, the ":" is not printed either, so that record is off by one field.
For example my input file has a populated $Comment (6th field) in each of the first two records , but it is empty in the second two records. This throws off my output file by one field.

How do I force it to print ":" so my records will print correctly?

I can get around it by using a test to see if it is empty and populating it but that seems cludgy to me.

Thanks,
SyyyBuggSmilie
 

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COLUMN(1)						    BSD General Commands Manual 						 COLUMN(1)

NAME
column -- columnate lists SYNOPSIS
column [-tx] [-c columns] [-s sep] [file ...] DESCRIPTION
The column utility formats its input into multiple columns. Rows are filled before columns. Input is taken from file operands, or, by default, from the standard input. Empty lines are ignored. The options are as follows: -c Output is formatted for a display columns wide. -s Specify a set of characters to be used to delimit columns for the -t option. -t Determine the number of columns the input contains and create a table. Columns are delimited with whitespace, by default, or with the characters supplied using the -s option. Useful for pretty-printing displays. -x Fill columns before filling rows. DIAGNOSTICS
The column utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs. ENVIRONMENT
COLUMNS The environment variable COLUMNS is used to determine the size of the screen if no other information is available. EXAMPLES
(printf "PERM LINKS OWNER GROUP SIZE MONTH DAY " ; printf "HH:MM/YEAR NAME " ; ls -l | sed 1d) | column -t SEE ALSO
colrm(1), ls(1), paste(1), sort(1) HISTORY
The column command appeared in 4.3BSD-Reno. BSD
June 6, 1993 BSD
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