echo Whitespace stripping....

[Richard Briggs]

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

[Thierry Poels_1 · Accepted solution]

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.

[Thierry Poels_1]

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.

[Richard Briggs]

thanks!

[Richard Briggs]

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

;-)

[Martin Johnson]

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


Marty