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Re: bash/printf question


From: Pablo Saratxaga
Subject: Re: bash/printf question
Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2000 05:25:08 +0100

Kaixo!
Li Sat, 23 Dec 00 16:00:01 +0100,
 James Vahn <address@hidden> scrîjheut:

 JV>     ~$ A=66; B=$[ A + 1 ]; /usr/bin/printf "%c\n" $B

 JV> I'm looking for a "C" to be printed. It's showing a "6" instead.
 
The problem is not with printf (the shell command is just a wrapper calling
the printf() from libc) but with the shell; how do you pass a *number*
and not a char as parameter ?
when you do 'printf "%c\n" 6' you are not passing the number 6, but instead
you are passing '6' (with quotes), that is the number 0x36.

JV> This works:

 JV>     ~$ A=66; export B=$[ A + 1 ]; perl -e 'printf("%c\n", $ENV{B})'

Because perl converts strings that can be parsed as numbers to numbers;
the shell doesn't.
When you type 66 in the shell you are not typing 66 but two bytes of value 
0x36. When you type 66 in perl you are typing a number 66 (0x42)

How does it works for printf "%x" (and %d etc) then ? Well, the shell wrapper
seems to call a parser for them (as the argument is known to be a number).
It doesn't for %c apparently. Is that a bug ? It seems so to me.

chanae:~$ /usr/bin/printf --help | grep bug
Report bugs to <address@hidden>.

You know where to report the bug now.
(I Cc: them)


-- 
Pablo Saratxaga         PGP key 0x8F0E4975

Zerbait gaizki gertatzen ahal balitz, zerbait gertatuko da. -- Murphy



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