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OSXFAQ Mac OS X UNIX Tip-of-the-Day
Scripting One-Liners - Fancy Printing
Ever wanted to spice up the output from a script, like aligning numbers or zero padding them. Then consider using 'printf' over echo.
Here's how to print numbers in columns, right justified.
$ num1=4; num2="123"
$ printf "Value: %5d units\n" $num1; printf "Value: %5d units\n" $num2
Value: 4 units
Value: 123 units
Printf prints what's inside its format string. %5d tells printf to look outside the format string and interpret what it finds as a decimal number and to write it to a column 5 characters wide.
And to left justify:
$ printf "Value: %-5d units\n" $num1; printf "Value: %-5d units\n" $num2
Value: 4 units
Value: 123 units
And to print leading zeros:
$ printf "Value: %05d units\n" $num1; printf "Value: %05d units\n" $num2
Value: 00004 units
Value: 00123 units
You can also change the format stored in a variable:
$ num1=$(printf "%05d" $num1)
$ echo $num1
00004
The printf function can do much than than shown here. It uses the printf library function, which is documented by:
$ man 3 printf
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