Centering a line

UNIX for Beginners Q & A UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers
1

So I am trying to use the .ce 3 command to center 3 lines in my text, but I am getting an execute permission denied. I made rwx capabilites for all users too. Any idea why I am getting this error?

2

Could you be more specific? Is this nroff? What are you executing? Why do you need execute permissions? Why do users need write access? what OS/version is this? Could you give an example and desired output?

3

I have a menu with three separate lines...

Phone Book
Company
Phone Number

I just want to center these three lines. I am in bsh. I do not know how to center these...

4

What is bsh? How is the .ce command used? Do not leave us guessing. Show a representative sample of input, desired output, attempts at a solution and specify what OS and versions being used, or this thread will be closed.

5

Bsh is my shell that I am using. I have a script that echoes 3 lines that I stated above. I researched how to center lines in unix and someone said tO use the .ce 3 command but it didn't wOrk. Is there another way to center lines in my script

6

Never heard of bsh. What's your system? what are you trying to center lines in? What is your script anyway?

7

I'm using bash. Sorry. All I want to know is if there is some generic command in vi editor to center a line???

8

:ce works in vim. Is your editor vim?

9

If you are trying to center output, take a look at this function. I don't know where I got it as it's been in my bag of tricks for ages. Works in ksh93 on Solaris.

$ cat print_centered.ksh
#!/usr/dt/bin/dtksh

print_centered(){
  integer screen_width=$(stty|grep columns|cut -f2 -d';'|cut -f2 -d'=')
  integer text_length=${#1}
  integer pad=$((($screen_width - $text_length)/2 ))
  format="%${pad}s%s"
  printf "$format\n" " " "$1"
}

print_centered "center this text please"

exit 0

$ print_centered.ksh
                            center this text please
$
10

I just have vi editor running....

---------- Post updated at 05:58 PM ---------- Previous update was at 12:09 PM ----------

gary...

when I run your script, it says `(' unexpected

Am I missing something?

11

What shell are you using?

12

bash shell

13

At the bash prompt...

$ cat file1
Phone Book
Company
Phone Number

$ COLUMNS=179

$ while read TEXT; do printf '%*s\n'  $(((($COLUMNS-${#TEXT})/2)+${#TEXT})) "$TEXT"; done < file1
                                                                                    Phone Book
                                                                                      Company
                                                                                   Phone Number

$
14

This works in bash on my system. All I did was remove the "integer" before the variable definitions.

Note too that getting the width from the stty command allows the function to work dynamically. I can change the width of my putty window and the text will still be centered in window when run.

#!/bin/bash

print_centered(){
  screen_width=$(stty|grep columns|cut -f2 -d';'|cut -f2 -d'=')
  text_length=${#1}
  pad=$((($screen_width - $text_length)/2 ))
  format="%${pad}s%s"
  printf "$format\n" " " "$1"
}

print_centered "center this text please"

exit 0
15

So I type your code in word for word, and it gives me an error...

syntax error: `screen_width=$' unexpected

16

Well I've shown it works. Maybe you have a typo or your version of bash doesn't like the "$( )" syntax for command substitution? At any rate you have a couple of examples and the logic so that should get you going.