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a shell function to print a ruler the width of the terminal window.

Terminal - a shell function to print a ruler the width of the terminal window.
ruler() { for s in '....^....|' '1234567890'; do w=${#s}; str=$( for (( i=1; $i<=$(( ($COLUMNS + $w) / $w )) ; i=$i+1 )); do echo -n $s; done ); str=$(echo $str | cut -c -$COLUMNS) ; echo $str; done; }
2010-01-28 19:25:25
User: bartonski
Functions: cut echo
14
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a shell function to print a ruler the width of the terminal window.
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Alternatives

There is 1 alternative - vote for the best!

Terminal - Alternatives
ruler() { for s in '....^....|' '1234567890'; do w=${#s}; str=''; for (( i=1; i<=(COLUMNS + w) / $w; i=i+1 )); do str+=$s; done; str=${str:0:COLUMNS} ; echo $str; done; }
2010-01-31 05:55:00
User: dennisw
Functions: echo
1
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a shell function to print a ruler the width of the terminal window.

A similar version for Bash that doesn't require cut and shortens the function in a few places. And it uses local variables. (similar to a version by eightmillion in a comment on the another version)

Show sample output | Comments (0) | Add to favourites | Report as malicious

Know a better way?

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What others think

awesome

Comment by linuxrawkstar 6 weeks and 1 day ago

? If a take a real ruler, that doesn't match the result of the shell output...

Comment by sputnick 6 weeks and 1 day ago

This is a little shorter, but it doesn't work on zsh:

ruler(){ for s in '....^....|' '1234567890';do unset str;while [ ${#str} -lt $COLUMNS ];do str=$str$s;done;echo ${str:0:$COLUMNS};done;}

I think this method is kind of interesting too:

ruler(){ for s in '....^....|' '1234567890';do str=$(printf "%$((COLUMNS))s"|sed 's/./'$s'/g');echo ${str:0:$COLUMNS};done;}
Comment by eightmillion 6 weeks ago

This is a fun command to play around with. Thanks for submitting it. This version numbers the fields like a ruler:

ruler(){ local c;for s in '...^^^...|' '1234567890';do unset str;while [ ${#str} -lt $COLUMNS ];do str=${str/^^^/$(printf "%.3d" $c)}$s;c=$[c+1];done;echo ${str:0:$COLUMNS};done;}
Comment by eightmillion 6 weeks ago

Thanks, eightmillion. I was trying to figure out a way to number the ruler. I wrote a version of this in perl that will do just that.

The perl version actually puts the tens digit where the pipe symbol goes:

....^....1....^....2....^....3

123456789012345678901234567890

I figure that anyone can figure out which hundred they're in, so having the marks accurate to the 10s digit is sufficient... I can grab that by dividing and modding the number by 10. I'll play around with that this weekend.

Sputnick -- the idea here is not to create a ruler to measure in inches or centimeters, but rather to measure by characters on the screen. Handy when you're trying to figure out where the start and end positions are for 'cut' for example. FWIW, I believe that there are a couple of generators out there for PostScript rulers and PostScript graph paper. As long as you print these out on a printer which does not scale the image, you will come out with something that you can use to measure in inches or cm.

Comment by bartonski 6 weeks ago

irg. got the code tags wrong on the ruler. That should have looked like this:

....^....1....^....2....^....3

123456789012345678901234567890

Comment by bartonski 6 weeks ago

sigh.

....^....1....^....2....^....3

123456789012345678901234567890

Comment by bartonski 6 weeks ago

@eightmillion: for zsh, change the echo to:

echo ${str[1,$COLUMNS]}
Comment by dennisw 5 weeks and 5 days ago

@eightmillion: your field numbering version sometimes misses the last one. Adding ten to the number of columns in the while statement fixes that. Here's one way to do it:

while (( ${#str} < $COLUMNS + 10 ))
Comment by dennisw 5 weeks and 5 days ago

@bartonski: Here's a version of eightmillion's version that does what your Perl version does:

ruler(){ local c;for s in '....^....|' '1234567890';do unset str;while (( ${#str} < $COLUMNS + 10 ));do str=${str/|/$(printf "%d" $c)}$s;((c=(c+1)%10));done;echo ${str:0:$COLUMNS};done;}

@eightmillion: You're right, it is fun.

Comment by dennisw 5 weeks and 5 days ago

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