I need to do some string manipulation to ensure the final way I put together a feed file trailer isn't done with clumsy coding. Anyone out there who knows Unix string manipulation well, please read on... 1. I am assigning an environment variable based on the count of records in a file. As an example: MY_VAR=`wc -l $MY_FILE | awk '{printf $1}'` But, as well as containing the number, MY_VAR has to be right-padded with spaces so it is 4 characters in length. e.g. if MY_FILE contains 10 records, MY_VAR must be '10 '. Is there a neat way of doing this? 2. I have a couple of variables containing many repeated instances of the same character. FILLER_1 needs to be 60 instances of '9', and FILLER_2 needs to be 184 spaces. Currently I have my prototype using assignments like the following example, just to give me something that is up and running: FILLER_1='999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999' # 60 instances of '9' This is a bit clumsy, so I don't want to include it in the final live system. Does anyone know of a function which can be passed a character and number and output the character the specified number of times?

#!/bin/ksh #1) MY_FILE=myfile MY_VAR=`wc -l < $MY_FILE` MY_VAR=`echo $MY_VAR ` # change int to string MY_VAR=`printf "%-4.4s" "$MY_VAR"` # pad with 4 spaces echo "|$MY_VAR|" #2) # variation of Eric Pement's center routine at: # http://www.student.northpark.edu/pemente/sed/sed1line.txt # STR=9 # echo $STR|sed -e :a -e 's/^.\{1,59\}$/&9/;ta' # paramaterize it: LEN=60 CHAR=9 LEN=$((LEN-1)) # subtract 1 STR=$CHAR sed_cmd="echo \$STR|sed -e :a -e 's/^.\{1,${LEN}\}$/&${CHAR}/;ta'" FILLER_1=`eval $sed_cmd` echo $FILLER_1 # should be 60-9s

Another solution for #1 question: #!/bin/ksh VAR=$(echo `wc -l < input.txt`" " | cut -c1-4) echo "|$VAR|" Luke Chi

I'm sorry. The # of spaces between the double quotes are four in the following line: VAR=$(echo `wc -l < input.txt`" " | cut -c1-4) For some reason, it only showed one space when I copied/pasted/posted it. It should be four spaces. Luke Chi

How to insert 100 chars of 9 in vi? 1. press i - to go to the vi insert mode 2. press 9 - to insert the char 9 3. press Esc - to go to the vi command mode 4. type 99. - to repeat 99 times of the previous vi edit command which was "inserting an i char at the current cursor location" 5. done - your're in the vi command mode now Luke Chi

The answer to #2 question: (creating a line with one hundred 9 chars) #!/bin/ksh typeset -Z100 VAR=0 echo $VAR | tr 0 9 Luke Chi

Another answer for #1 question: #!/bin/ksh typeset -L4 VAR=`wc -l < input.txt` echo "|$VAR|" Luke Chi