Hi,

I wrote a bash script that logs some very large (and occasional very small) numbers. I would like to have commas at every thousandth spot to make it easier to read. I assume there must be some program or built-in command (in bash) that does this, but I can't find it.

Can someone please let me know what the command is? If there is no command, is there a simple way to do this?

Just to make sure everyone understands what I am looking for:
Let's say I have the following number: 45678923

I would like my script to write it as: 45,678,923

Thanks.

Just to get you started, try these things at the command line:
Note that the character after the percent sign is a single quote (most likely the key just to the right of the semicolon on your keyboard).

Hope this helps.

Thanks. That is exactly what I needed.

I am not sure if you just misspelled it, but I used printf and not print.

Thanks.

Yep, I missspelled it. Sigh.

How can I do the same thing in ksh?

This should works the same with ksh.

printf is an external program, not a builtin in most shells. I'm not sure about all shells, but it's definitely the case in ksh and bash. With this in mind, you will find that executing printf a lot of times in a tight loop will lead to terrible performance, since a new process must be created each time it is called.

In my experience, when you start to hit this level of complexity, it's usually worth switching to using something like perl or python for your program.

I tried in ksh. It does not recognize the single quote after the % sign. It said "invalid directive"

Try using recent a ksh release which supports this syntax with its printf builtin or the external printf command (/bin/printf).

I'm using ksh93s+ and it works.

As a side note. This numerical notation is awful to me, as the comma is the standard decimal separator in the French and probably some other European locales.