Iterating through a range of ints in ksh?

Question

How can I iterate through a simple range of ints using a for loop in ksh?

For example, my script currently does this...

for i in 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
do
   #stuff
done

...but I'd like to extend the range way above 7. Is there a better syntax?

martin clayton · Accepted Answer · 2009-11-13T16:07:28.600

47

Curly brackets?

for i in {1..7}
do
   #stuff
done

edited Nov 13 '09 at 16:07

answered Oct 19 '09 at 21:22

martin clayton

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1

See also http://stackoverflow.com/questions/169511/how-do-i-iterate-over-a-range-of-numbers-in-bash – martin clayton Oct 19 '09 at 21:50
14

Curly brackets {1..7} don´t work in ksh. They do in Linux, because linux's ksh is a symlink to bash shell. Also c-like sintax doesn´t work in the proper korn shell neither. – Perkolator Jan 21 '10 at 08:04
2

What version of Linux has ksh symlinked to bash? – Dennis Williamson Feb 09 '11 at 00:55
On AIX, you may need to call on `ksh93`; `ksh` was based on the older, limited, `ksh88`. Same for Solaris up to and including Solaris 10. – Henk Langeveld Mar 05 '14 at 11:36
3

Thanks. Even sth like `{01..219}` works (in zsh), i.e. evaluates to "01 02 ... 09 10 11 .. 99 100 101 102 ... 219". – Albert Jul 25 '14 at 14:51

score 15 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 19 '09 at 21:21

15

While loop?

while [[ $i -lt 1000 ]] ; do
    # stuff
   (( i += 1 ))
done

answered Oct 19 '09 at 21:21

Lance Rushing

7,540
4
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34

Thanks - that'd do nicely, but is there no other for loop syntax? – razlebe Oct 19 '09 at 21:23
2

Only this one worked out of all the versions I tried. I am on UNIX using ksh. 182 while [[ $i -lt 1000 ]] ; do i=$(($i+1)) echo "asdf $i" done 183 history – mathtick Jun 27 '11 at 13:10
4

Replace `((i+=1))` by `i=$((i+1))` if POSIX compliance is desired. – ezequiel-garzon Aug 23 '11 at 08:03
This works well after you define `i=0`. I'm running AIX 6.1.0.0 without `seq` which worked on my `7.1.0.0` new install. – Wally Aug 13 '13 at 13:30
This is a good solution for the AIX ksh users since the other `{1..1000}` doesn't work in AIX – Davy M Aug 04 '17 at 17:17

Dennis Williamson · Answer 3 · 2011-02-09T00:59:19.230

11

ksh93, Bash and zsh all understand C-like for loop syntax:

for ((i=1; i<=9; i++))
do
    echo $i
done

Unfortunately, while ksh and zsh understand the curly brace range syntax with constants and variables, Bash only handles constants (including Bash 4).

edited Feb 09 '11 at 00:59

answered Oct 19 '09 at 22:22

Dennis Williamson

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Doesn't work on AIX. This is not correct on all versions of KSH – Katerberg Feb 08 '11 at 21:15
sbtorsvr391:~/temp/pipes $ ksh $ for ((i=1; i<=9; i++)) ksh: syntax error: `((' unexpected $ – mathtick Jun 27 '11 at 13:07
@mathtick: Are you using ksh93 (as specified in my answer)? – Dennis Williamson Jun 27 '11 at 13:28
ksh93? I have no idea. On poorly maintained Solaris install so probably not. How to check? ksh --version does nothing. – mathtick Jun 28 '11 at 19:54
@mathtick: Try `echo $KSH_VERSION` or `echo ${.sh.version}` – Dennis Williamson Jun 29 '11 at 03:31
That didn't work either ... $ echo ${.sh.version} ksh: ${.sh.version}: bad substitution $ echo $KSH_VERSION $ – mathtick Jun 30 '11 at 13:29
@mathtick: In emacs mode (set -o emacs) try pressing `^V` (ctrl-v) which should show the version number. Also try using [`/bin/ksh93`](http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E19963-01/html/821-1461/ksh93-1.html) or `/usr/xpg4/bin/sh` for your shell to see if they support C-style `for` loops. See the [`man` page](http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E19963-01/html/821-1461/ksh-1.html) for more information. – Dennis Williamson Jul 02 '11 at 00:35
ksh was a sun specific ksh88 dialect up to and including solaris 10. The opensolaris project added ksh93, and also had it replace /bin/sh and /bin/ksh. Older scripts may have issues with the latter. – Henk Langeveld Jun 21 '12 at 11:55

score 11 · Answer 4 · answered Oct 28 '10 at 17:15

11

on OpenBSD, use jot:

for i in `jot 10`; do echo $i ; done;

answered Oct 28 '10 at 17:15

Colin

111
1
2

Oh my gosh this is it! :D – Jon Marnock Dec 15 '20 at 07:36

score 6 · Answer 5 · edited Sep 23 '21 at 21:36

6

Using seq:

for i in $(seq 1 10)
do 
  echo $i
done

edited Sep 23 '21 at 21:36

Zach Young

10,137
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answered Nov 30 '09 at 18:50

cheko

61
1

1

@C.Ross Looks like someone installed 'seq' on your AIX box. It does not come standard (at least not on the 6.1 boxes I use) – gbtimmon Jul 01 '13 at 16:02

score 5 · Answer 6 · answered Jan 10 '13 at 16:38

The following will work on AIX / Linux / Solaris ksh.

#!/bin/ksh

d=100

while (( $d < 200 ))
do
   echo "hdisk$d"
  (( d=$d+1 ))
done

Optionally if you wanted to pad to 5 places, i.e. 00100 .. 00199 you could begin with:

#!/bin/ksh
typeset -Z5 d

-Scott

score 2 · Answer 7 · answered Apr 18 '12 at 17:11

Just a few examples I use in AIX because there is no range operator or seq, abusing perl instead.

Here's a for loop, using perl like seq:

for X in `perl -e 'print join(" ", 1..10)'` ; do something $X ; done

This is similar, but I prefer while read loops over for. No backticks or issues with spaces.

perl -le 'print "$_ " for 1..10;' | while read X ; do xargs -tn1 ls $X ; done

My fav, do bash-like shell globbing, in this case permutations with perl.

perl -le 'print for glob "e{n,nt,t}{0,1,2,3,4,5}"' | xargs -n1 rmdev -dl

Iterating through a range of ints in ksh?

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