printf doesn't align the output to the right when in bash script

[lleroy]

Hi

I'm fairly new to bash scripting so please bear with me if i have missed something obvious

I'm trying to make a little script that shows a "up"/"down" status for a handful of applications upon ssh login.

I want the output to show something like this:

apache up
proftpd up
mysql_server up
/dev/sda down

explained, i just want the up/down variable to be aligned to the right side of the screen/terminal.

I tried something like this:

sda1=`if [ $sda == "standby" ]; then
printf "%${COLUMNS}s\n" "\e[0;33mdown\e[m"
else printf "%${COLUMNS}s\n" "\e[0;32mup\e[m"
fi`

echo -e "/dev/sda $sda1"

but that just outputs:

/dev/sda up

...without the text alignment.

If i just write the printf cmd in a bash window, it aligns the output to the right as it should.

It seems like it ignores the alignment when it's being run in in a script?

How can I get the variable-part of each line in the output to be aligned to the right?

[lleroy]

bump

Any help would be greatly apprecieated!

[Krendoshazin]

If you echo $COLUMNS from the script you'll see that it returns nothing, but if you echo it from the console it returns the correct value - hence the reason it doesn't work. Try putting COLUMNS=`tput cols` at the start of your script.