#!/bin/bash

# This bash script re-formats the lines of the standard input to a
# format specified by the command line arguments. It is a simple loop
# around the printf command of bash(1).

# The standard input consists of lines that have fields separated by
# white space, as implicitly defined by the read-function in bash(1).

# The command line arguments are a list of C-style format specifications
# for the printf command in bash(1) for each of the input lines. These
# are automatically augmented by a line feed as a last specification.
# If the input lines have more fields than covered by the number of
# command line arguments, the format-list is worked through repeatedly
# from the left to the right, as specified by the printf function in bash(1).

# Examples:
#    cFmt %20s %20s %.0s %.0s %.0s < myFile
# re-prints the myFile and puts the first entry in its lines into a field
# of 20 characters, the second entry into a filed of 20 characters, and the
# 3rd to 5th field are suppressed. The 6th and 7th field are again emitted
# in 20-character-wide fashion. 
#
#    cFmt %23.16e < myFile
# re-prints the myFile and prints all entries in a floating-point
# exponential format.
#
#    cFmt %23.16e "|" %23.16e "|" < myFile
# re-prints the myFile and prints all entries in a floating-point
# exponential format, a maximum of 2 values per line, adding vertical bars in
# between.

# see also: bash(1), printf(1), printf(3), cut(1), paste(1)
# Richard J. Mathar
# 2007-10-05

# the format is the comand line arguments, concatenated
fmt=$*

# debugging
# echo format $fmt

# a bash array to handle a variable number of fields
declare -a inl

while true ; do
	# read a single line of stdin
	read -a inl ;

	# if there was no further input, exit
	if [[ $? -ne 0 ]] ; then
		break ;
	fi

	printf "$*\n" ${inl[@]} ;
done