How to echo formatted string into a variable

Question

I'm trying to accumulate formatted string in a variable. Something similar to:

for i in 1 2 3; do
    a="${a} `printf "%-10s %s" "hello" "world"`"
done

However, when I echo the output, it doesn't preserve the format, even when I use the -e or -n flags along with the echo command. How should I do that?

Thanks

Henk Langeveld · Accepted Answer · 2014-01-14 13:09:37Z

8

Have you quoted your variable when echoing? If you do, you will see the format is kept.

$ for i in 1 2 3; do     a="${a} `printf "%-10s %s" "hello" "world"`"; done
$ echo "$a"
 hello      world hello      world hello      world

While not quoting destroys everything in the format:

$ echo $a
hello world hello world hello world

edited Jan 14, 2014 at 13:09

Henk Langeveld

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answered Jan 14, 2014 at 13:04

fedorqui

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