topic Re: echo Whitespace stripping.... in Operating System - HP-UX

echo Whitespace stripping....

Richard Briggs — Thu, 06 Jun 2002 12:44:11 GMT

execute
^^^^^^^
date +%b" "%e" "%I:%M:

and you get something like:

Jun 6 08:38:

(depending on what day and time you execute it)

Now execute:
^^^^^^^^^^^^
echo `date +%b" "%e" "%I:%M:`
or
echo $(date +%b" "%e" "%I:%M:)

and you get:

Jun 6 08:38:

Did you notice the difference in the output? Look again, side by side:

************************
Jun 6 08:38:
Jun 6 08:38
************************

Why is my whitespace infront of the day being stripped away when echo (or print) prints the output of the date command!!?

rab

Re: echo Whitespace stripping....

Thierry Poels_1 — Thu, 06 Jun 2002 12:53:37 GMT

Hi,

echo drops multiple whitespaces.

echo `date +%b" "%e" "%I:%M:`
results in :
echo Jun##6#03:46:
(replace blanks by # for visibility)
which outputs:
Jun#6#03:46:

If you want to preserve the blanks you should add quotes:

echo "`date +%b' '%e' '%I:%M:`"

regards,
Thierry.

Re: echo Whitespace stripping....

Thierry Poels_1 — Thu, 06 Jun 2002 12:57:39 GMT

hmmm, sorry bad definition:
It's not really echo that drops the duplicate blanks, but rather the shell.
echo uses arguments like any other program, so to preserve blanks in the arguments, add quotes.

regards,
Thierry.

Re: echo Whitespace stripping....

Richard Briggs — Thu, 06 Jun 2002 12:58:40 GMT

thanks!

Re: echo Whitespace stripping....

Richard Briggs — Thu, 06 Jun 2002 13:27:00 GMT

even this web post stripped the white spaces!!! sheesh.

;-)

Re: echo Whitespace stripping....

Martin Johnson — Thu, 06 Jun 2002 18:23:29 GMT

Yes, I hate it when the software is too smart for its own good. I can't stand Microsoft Word!!!!

Marty