[SOLVED] Problem with space padding

waddles · 10-29-2013, 02:49 PM

I "thought" this was how to pad spaces in front of a line:
spaces=" "
pdl=12
pad=`echo "$spaces" | cut -c $pdl`
echo "B${pad}E"
but I get:
B E
I've tried with a constant instead of "$pdl" and get the same thing.
I "THINK" I have used this before but I am not able to get the proper pad length created. Use of printf had similar problems. Does anyone see my mistake. I would like to find a correction rather than an alternate padding solution since I feel certain I've used this before.
Thanks

Firerat · 10-29-2013, 03:18 PM

use printf

Code:

printf "B%12sE\n"

or for more fun

Code:

printf "%*s%*s%s\n" $(( ${COLUMNS} / 2 )) "B" $((12+1)) "E"

centre(ish)

Code:

Centre="This is in centre"
printf "%*s\n" $(( (${COLUMNS}+${#Centre}) / 2 )) "$Centre"