UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi,
I'm passing a variable to a scrpit which can be 1 to 3 characters long.
How can I force it to be three character long and add spaces to it?

The passed variable is stored in

Code:

$1

and I would like to be stored in

Code:

NewName

I tried without success

Code:

NewName=$(printf "%*s 3 $1)

So if

Code:

$1="12"

Code:

NewName=" 12"

Thanks,
Sarah

NewName has the value " 12". Print it within double quotes:

Code:

N=$(printf "%*s" 3 $1)
echo $N
12
echo "$N"
 12

Please note there's a double quote missing in your assignment...

You haven't told us which shell you are using. With bash i am not sure about the following being equally true (consult the man page about the "typeset" keyword), but in Korn shell (ksh) it is relatively straightforward:

Code:

typeset -R3 NewName="$1"

This will create a variable named "NewName" in the length of 3 characters and "right-justify" its content. If you pass only 1 character in "$1" this will yield "<b><b><char>", if you pass 2 it will result in "<b><char1><char2>".

Note that you can also have the value padded with zeroes instead of blanks. For instance:

Code:

typeset x="1"
typeset -RZ3 NewName="$x"

print - "$NewName"
001

Note also that this will always result in a 3-digit variable, even if (in the above example) "x" would be left empty. The content would be " " or "000" respectively then.

I hope this helps.

bakunin