piping seq to printf for number formatting

bash printf xargs seq
Paolo picture Paolo · Oct 3, 2013 · Viewed 28.4k times · Source

I'm trying to print the following pattern using printf and seq:

0000
0001
0002
0003

My problem is once I use:

seq 0 10 | xargs printf %04d

all my output is formatted into the same line likeso:

0000000100020003

I still can't get the hang of using xargs. How do I use it correctly in this case?

Answer

Joni picture Joni · Oct 3, 2013

The printf command does not output a line break if you don't ask it to. Try:

seq 0 10 | xargs printf '%04d\n'

Note that you can achieve the same with just seq, since it allows specifying a printf-style format:

seq -f %04g 0 10

Related questions

Integer ASCII value to character in BASH using printf

Character to value works: $ printf "%d\n" \'A 65 $ I have two questions, the first one is most important: How do I take 65 and turn it into A? \'A converts an ASCII character to its value using printf. Is the syntax …

Read More
Using colors with printf

When written like this, it outputs text in blue: printf "\e[1;34mThis is a blue text.\e[0m" But I want to have format defined in printf: printf '%-6s' "This is text" Now I have tried several options …

Read More
Padding characters in printf

I am writing a bash shell script to display if a process is running or not. So far, I got this: printf "%-50s %s\n" $PROC_NAME [UP] The code gives me this output: JBoss [DOWN] GlassFish [UP] verylongprocessname […

Read More