format lines using Shell scripts

Question

I have a list of shell scripts (that end with .sh) in a folder and I am trying to make a list of them, and the list should have two script names (separated by a space) in each line. I wrote the following script, but it does not work without showing any errors. I was hoping to get some help here:

file1=""

for file in $(ls ./*.sh); do

   i=1
   file1="$file1$file "

   if [ $i -lt 3 ]; then
      i=$(( i++ ))
      continue
   fi

    echo "file1 is $file1"           # expected $file1 is: scriptName1.sh scriptName2.sh
    echo $file1 >> ScriptList.txt    # save the two file names in the text file 
    file1=""
done

William Pursell · Accepted Answer · 2014-01-09 18:45:30Z

3

To get tab separated output:

  ls *.sh | paste - -

answered Jan 9, 2014 at 18:45

William Pursell

214k49 gold badges279 silver badges317 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

4 Comments

glenn jackman Over a year ago

+1 for paste, but you shouldn't use ls, use printf "%s\n" *.sh | paste - -

TonyW Over a year ago

is there a way to get "space" separated output? thanks

William Pursell Over a year ago

How does printf help? I like the idea of doing printf "%25s\n" *sh to help with alignment, but without a width specifier it doesn't seem to matter.

William Pursell Over a year ago

To change the delimiter to space, use paste -d ' ' - -

glenn jackman · Accepted Answer · 2014-01-09 18:59:04Z

2

The pr utility is handy for columnizing as well. It can split the data "vertically":

$ seq 10 | pr -2 -T -s" "
1 6
2 7
3 8
4 9
5 10

or "horizontally"

$ seq 10 | pr -2 -T -s" " -a
1 2
3 4
5 6
7 8
9 10

answered Jan 9, 2014 at 18:59

glenn jackman

249k42 gold badges233 silver badges362 bronze badges

Comments

Guntram Blohm · Accepted Answer · 2014-01-09 18:40:36Z

1

It's not a good idea to set i=1 everytime in your loop.

Try

ls -1 | while read a;
do 
    if [ -z $save ]; then
        save="$a"
    else
        echo "$save $a"
        save=""
    fi
done

answered Jan 9, 2014 at 18:40

Guntram Blohm

9,8492 gold badges27 silver badges36 bronze badges

2 Comments

glenn jackman Over a year ago

Note that -1 is automatically enabled when the output of ls is piped or redirected. Compare ls with ls | cat

William Pursell Over a year ago

However, ls > /dev/tty will produce columns :)

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

format lines using Shell scripts

3 Answers 3

4 Comments

Comments

2 Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

3 Answers 3

4 Comments

Comments

2 Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related