Shell Programming and Scripting

Preserve byte size of fields while pasting it to other file
Hello
I want to set two fields in a text file to be of size 20.
how to do it using unix ?
eg: ABC.txt

Name | City

I want Name and City both to be of size 20.

Also If I am pasting it in other file the byte size should be preserved.i.e. If I want to append content of ABC.txt to other PQR.txt,
I shall use
paste -d'|' PQR.txt ABC.txt > tmp.tmp

Now
file tmp.tmp should reflect my ABC file content of size 20 each.

Seeking quick suggestions ...

Try something like:

Code:

echo "abc Singapore" | awk '{ printf "%20s %20s\n",$1,$2 }'
                 abc            Singapore