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From: tif@doorstop.austin.ibm.com (Paul Chamberlain)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.shell
Subject: Re: adjusting string var to fixed length
Message-ID: <8193@awdprime.UUCP>
Date: 5 Jun 91 13:09:20 GMT
References: <1991Jun3.181447.12656@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> <1991Jun04.144951.28414@sco.COM>
Sender: news@awdprime.UUCP
Reply-To: tif@doorstop.austin.ibm.com (Paul Chamberlain)
Organization: IBM AWD, Austin
Lines: 15

In article <1991Jun04.144951.28414@sco.COM> john@sco.COM (John R. MacMillan) writes:
>|  Could someone please tell me how blanks can be appended to string vars
>If the fixed length is relatively short, ...

else something like this will do it (width of 75, x's for demonstration):
	a=abc
	awk 'BEGIN {printf "x%-75sx\n", "'"$a"'"; }' /dev/null

And gives you:
xabc                                                                        x

Note that without the "-", it will do right justification.

Paul Chamberlain | I do NOT speak for IBM.          IBM VNET: PAULCC AT AUSTIN
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