On May 16, 2013, at 8:28 AM, Tim Daneliuk wrote:

> On 05/16/2013 10:08 AM, Joe wrote:
>> Hello
>> 
>> Have script that has max size on content in a variable.
>> How to code size less than 51 characters?
>> 
> 
> FOO="Some string you want to check length of"
> FOOLEN=`echo $FOO | wc | awk '{print $3}'`
> 

Uh, without forking to 2 separate programs…

FOOLEN=${#FOO}


> You can then use $FOOLEN in a conditional.
> 


However, if the OP wanted to actually truncate $FOO to 51 characters:


NEWFOO=$( echo "$FOO" | awk -v max=51 '{print substr($0,0,max)}' )


However, if you want to handle the case of $FOO containing newlines (and you 
want the newline to count toward the max), then this instead would do the trick:


NEWFOO=$( echo "$FOO" | awk -v max=51 '
        {
                len = length($0)
                max -= len
                print substr($0,0,(max > 0 ? len : max + len))
                if ( max < 0 ) exit
                max--
        }' )


$NEWFOO, even if multi-line, will be limited to 51-bytes (adjust max=51 
accordingly for other desired-lengths). Newlines are preserved.

Last, but not least, if you want to be able to handle multi-line values but 
only want to return the first line up-to N bytes (using 51 as the OP used):


NEWFOO=$( echo "$FOO" | awk -v max=51 '{ print substr($0,0,max); exit }' )


If $FOO had multiple lines, $NEWFOO will have only the first line (and it will 
be truncated to 51 bytes or less).
-- 
Devin

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