Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!crdgw1!uunet!virtech!cpcahil
From: cpcahil@virtech.uucp (Conor P. Cahill)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.shell
Subject: Re: adjusting string var to fixed length
Message-ID: <1991Jun03.232947.13848@virtech.uucp>
Date: 3 Jun 91 23:29:47 GMT
References: <1991Jun3.181447.12656@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu>
Organization: Virtual Technologies Inc.
Lines: 19

rchattam@isis.cs.du.edu (King Chattam) writes:

>  Could someone please tell me how blanks can be appended to string vars
>to make it fixed length?

The following will do what you want:

	a=abc
	t="`expr \"$a          \" : \"\(..........\)\"`"

	echo "x${t}x"

You will get:  "xabc       x" which is $a plus 7 blanks.  The x's are only 
used to mark the string so you can see that the blanks actually are there.

-- 
Conor P. Cahill            (703)430-9247        Virtual Technologies, Inc.
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