Xref: utzoo comp.lang.c:24762 comp.unix.xenix:9232
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!rutgers!cmcl2!phri!cooper!dasys1!jpr
From: jpr@dasys1.UUCP (Jean-Pierre Radley)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c,comp.unix.xenix
Subject: Re: printf format
Keywords: comma.sed
Message-ID: <11443@dasys1.UUCP>
Date: 24 Dec 89 01:02:03 GMT
References: <5761@ozdaltx.UUCP>
Reply-To: jpr@dasys1.UUCP (Jean-Pierre Radley)
Organization: TANGENT
Lines: 28

In article <5761@ozdaltx.UUCP> root@ozdaltx.UUCP (root) writes:
>In the back of my mind, it seems like I read that there is a format
>character used in printf(C) that allows the formatting of numbers.
>I'd like to take a number, ie. 123456.78 and print it as
>123,456.78 . 
>If printf does not have this ability, it should be added.  

And make allowances for European conventions too, eh?

In the meantime, while working on a General Ledger program which used
'awk' for formatting, I found the same limitation in the 'printf'
function of 'awk'. So I wrote a sed filter to insert my commas:

sed -f comma.sed <infile >outfile

where comma.sed is:


# comma.sed, inserts commas in numbers preceded by enough blanks
: R
/[0-9][0-9][0-9[0-9][,.]/s/ \([-+0-9]*[0-9]\)\([0-9][0-9][0-9][,.]\)/\1,\2/g
t R

I noted, along the way, that a sed script allows ONE commented line at the
outset.
-- 
Jean-Pierre Radley					      jpr@jpradley.uucp
New York, NY					      72160.1341@compuserve.com