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tony5429

Member

Registered: 2006-03-28

Posts: 1,017

How to truncate text in a shell script? [SOLVED]

Here is my shell script...

#!/bin/bash

case "$1" in

artist) dcop amarok player artist ;;
title)  dcop amarok player title ;;

esac

I want it to send the artist and title truncated if they are more than 20 characters and with a little '...' ellipsis at the end. Can anyone help me?

Last edited by tony5429 (2008-03-12 13:28:24)

wain

Member

From: France

Registered: 2005-05-01

Posts: 289

Website

Re: How to truncate text in a shell script? [SOLVED]

That should works :

#!/bin/bash

case "$1" in

artist) 
    artistname=`dcop amarok player artist`
    if [ ! -z "${artistname:20}" ]; then
        echo "${artistname::20}..."
    else
        echo $artistname
    fi
    ;;
title)  
    songtitle=`dcop amarok player title`
    if [ ! -z "${songtitle:20}" ]; then
        echo "${songtitle::20}..."
    else
        echo $songtitle
    fi
    ;;
esac

Last edited by wain (2008-03-11 20:55:43)

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finferflu

Forum Fellow

From: Manchester, UK

Registered: 2007-06-21

Posts: 1,899

Website

Re: How to truncate text in a shell script? [SOLVED]

This might be a starting point, even though I don't know the answer: http://developer.apple.com/documentatio … 03521-SW16 (gosh what a long URL)

edit
wow, I was slow

Last edited by finferflu (2008-03-11 20:52:38)

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tony5429

Member

Registered: 2006-03-28

Posts: 1,017

Re: How to truncate text in a shell script? [SOLVED]

Fantastic! Thanks, Wain! That is exactly what I needed