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From: les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.shell
Subject: Re: adjusting string var to fixed length
Message-ID: <1991Jun13.195723.9335@chinet.chi.il.us>
Date: 13 Jun 91 19:57:23 GMT
References: <9106111833.AA07449@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Organization: Chinet - Chicago Public Access UNIX
Lines: 17

>Mark> If you are using "ksh" [...]

I've done this in /bin/sh to get fixed width numbers:

case $VAR in
  ???) VAR=0$VAR
  ;;
  ??)  VAR=00$VAR
  ;;
  ?)   VAR=000$VAR
  ;;
esac

It seems faster than calling up sed or awk, at least for small widths.

Les Mikesell
  les@chinet.chi.il.us