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SED: Align lines LEFT instead of right on a 79-column width

SED: Align lines LEFT instead of right on a 79-column width

I've seen the SED oneliner:

sed -e :a -e 's/^.\{1,78\}$/ &/;ta'

I want to do the same bij I want to align LEFT. So the question is how can I get a 79 column width with the text alingned LEFT?

Solution

  • After the clarification in the comment: you can archieve that like this:

    fold -w79 yourfile | sed -e :a -e 's/^.\{0,78\}$/& /;ta'

    The fold folds long lines and the sed appends spaces to short lines. Note tha the /& / part has the space right of the &. This appends the space (& means the unmodified line).

    I also changed the {1,78} to {0,78}, thus empty lines will also be expanded.