Shell Programming and Scripting

You could make a variable with 100 spaces in front of it and always print that string before it. Or you could use tabs.

yep but the variable is in loop and so at different instance contain diff sized values.
For example
p=pop
p=poplopopl(next sequence in loop)

so if add tab or spaces it remains same.

Wat i want is
p=pop----------- (assume - as space)
p=poplopopl-----

It can be achieved by taking wc of $p and adding (max-length-neede) - wc($p) spaces. but any other clue?

If you don't want a trailing newline, remove "\\n". If you don't want it left justified, remove the "-". If you don't want a 100 character wide string, change the "100" to suit your needs.

Code:

printf %-100s\\n "$p"

Do yourself a favor and read up on printf as Corona suggested . It's an external command, but it's also a builtin on some popular shells (ksh and bash, for example). It's also part of the POSIX standard, in case that's of importance to you.

Regards,
Alister

Thanks alister> u rock. I read man page, but the one in my system doesn't seem to be very informative . it doesn't even have an entry for %s :P

---------- Post updated at 06:26 PM ---------- Previous update was at 06:24 PM ----------

Any idea on removing duplicate characters in a string in one line?

for example : str=lstls reqd output: lst

P.S : I googled , but didn't anything suit my request. Thanks in advance.