Adding variable number of space in between two string

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

Hi,

I am looking for the way to add variable number of spaces between two string. e.g input line is
a ,bb
abc ,bcb
pqr ,bfg

My output should be something like this

a                                   ,bb
abc                    ,bcb
pqr                 ,bfg

This text are basically inside a file. So I tried like this

while read line
do
        IFS=','
        set $line
        printf '%s' "$1" >> out.txt
        ## Here I have to include space to arrange line properly
        printf '%s,' "$pading" >> out.txt 
        printf '%s\n' "$2" >> out.txt
 
done < $fname

Thanks

---------- Post updated at 04:18 AM ---------- Previous update was at 04:13 AM ----------

Well I am not able to show the require output properly . The only thing which I want is second column should be start at same point.Like
bg
bc

Not like
bg
"some spaces" bc

2

This may help:

IFS="${IFS},"
while read f1 f2; do
        printf '%-20s%s\n' "$f1" "$f2"
done

which generates:

a                   bb
abc                 bcb
pqr                 bfg
3

Thanks. But it is not working

4

I checked the script:

$ sh diehard.sh < diehard.txt
a                   bb
abc                 bcb
pqr                 bfg

$ cat diehard.sh
IFS="${IFS},"
while read f1 f2; do
        printf '%-20s%s\n' "$f1" "$f2"
done

$ cat diehard.txt
a ,bb
abc ,bcb
pqr ,bfg

Can you post your version of the script and what it is (or is not) producing?

1 Like
5

Hello,

Could you please try following, it may help you.

awk -F, 'FNR==NR{l=length($1) > l?length($1):l;next} {$1=sprintf("%-"l"s",$1)} 1' OFS=, Input_file Input_file

Output will be as follows.

a                                    ,bb
abc                                  ,bcb
pqr                                  ,bfg

Thanks,
R. Singh

6

Well the field is separated by , so I can have pq abc , pq. In that case your script won't work.
By the way thanks for your help.

7

Hello,

Following is working even space is there in first field, let's say we have following input file.

Input_file:

cat check_space
a                                   ,bb
abc                    ,bcb
pqr ab              ,bfg

Output will be as follows.

awk -F, 'FNR==NR{l=length($1) > l?length($1):l;next} {$1=sprintf("%-"l"s",$1)} 1' OFS=, Input_file Input_file
 
a                                     ,bb
abc                                   ,bcb
pqr ab                                ,bfg

Thanks,
R. Singh

1 Like
8

Yes it working. Thanks.

Can we have any kind of separator like | or : or ; ?

9

With respect R. Singh, your code has an interesting side effect if the width of the line of data is not non-decreasing, as in:

a   ,bb
abc                        ,bcb
pqr ab    ,bfg

Which results in:

a   ,bb
abc                        ,bcb
pqr ab                     ,bfg

which may or may not be desirable. For a constant width, perhaps:

awk -F ' *,' '{printf "%-20sn,%s\n", $1, $2; }' inputfile
a                   ,bb
abc                 ,bcb
pqr ab              ,bfg

Depends what the end result is supposed to be....

10

Yes, offcourse we can have different seprators in code, also I have changed my solution a bit in previous posts in which I am reading file 2 times. Following is an example for separator ; .

Input_file:

cat check_space
a                                   ;bb
abc                    ;bcb
pqr ab                                ;bfg

Output will be as follows.

awk -F";" 'FNR==NR{l=length($1) > l?length($1):l;next} {$1=sprintf("%-"l"s",$1)} 1' OFS=";"  Input_file Input_file
 
a                                     ;bb
abc                                   ;bcb
pqr ab                                ;bfg

Thanks,
R. Singh

---------- Post updated at 07:29 AM ---------- Previous update was at 06:56 AM ----------

Hi derekludwig,

I have fixed the same and mentioned in POST#10. Also you can't hardcode value of "%-20s as it is dependent on 1st field.
so we can better take length of first field and do the operation accordingly.

Thanks,
R. Singh