or, more efficiently:

    printf -v spacer "%${diff}s" ''

On Mon, May 6, 2024 at 6:35 PM Mark J. Reed <markjreed@gmail.com> wrote:

> Well, mixed up your var names. This is what I meant:
>
>     spacer=$(printf "%${diff}s" '')
>
>
> On Mon, May 6, 2024 at 6:33 PM Mark J. Reed <markjreed@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> printf "%${spacer}s" "" ?
>>
>> Mark J. Reed <markjreed@gmail.com>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, May 6, 2024 at 18:04 Ray Andrews <rayandrews@eastlink.ca> wrote:
>>
>>> So I want to adjust the length of string1. I do this  by inserting a
>>> spacer in string1 who's length is calculated from the length of string2:
>>>
>>>     local diff spacer
>>>     (( diff = $#string2 - 76 ))
>>>     for (( dd=1; dd<diff; dd++ )); do spacer+=' '; done
>>>     ... # spacer will be incorporated into string1, not shown.
>>>
>>> It works fine, but I'll bet there's a less laborious way -- some way of
>>> creating 'spacer' with  'diff' number of spaces without the for loop.  I
>>> could make 'spacer' too long and then cut it at an index [diff], but I
>>> doubt that's as simple as it could be.  I know it's there, I just can't
>>> quite remember.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>
> --
> Mark J. Reed <markjreed@gmail.com>
>


-- 
Mark J. Reed <markjreed@gmail.com>