simplify repeating input to printf bash

Question

Instead of multiple ${DOWN}'s is it possible to repeat x number of times?

readonly RED='\033[0;31m'
readonly NC='\033[0m' # No Color
readonly DOWN='\xE2\x96\xBC'
printf "%b%b%b%b look down %b%b%b%b\n" "${RED}" "${DOWN}" "${DOWN}" "${DOWN}" "${DOWN}" "${DOWN}" "${DOWN}" "${NC}"

▼▼▼ look down ▼▼▼

You probably don't have to hard-code UTF-8 sequences: `readonly DOWN=$'\u25bc'`. — chepner, Apr 09 '20 at 16:51
`RED=$(tput setaf 1); NC=$(tput setaf 9); DOWN=$(tput cud 1)`. And, to make your life really easy: `DOWN5=$(tput cud 5)` — William Pursell, Apr 09 '20 at 17:07
@WilliamPursell `DOWN` is an arrow character, not a cursor movement command. — chepner, Apr 09 '20 at 17:14

Walter A · Answer 1 · 2020-04-09T21:20:31.850

Use some command to repeat your down-string.

printf "%b%b%b%b look down %b%b%b%b\n" "${RED}" $(yes "${DOWN}" | head -6) "${NC}"
# or
printf "%b%b%b%b look down %b%b%b%b\n" "${RED}" $(for ((i=0;i<6;i++)); do echo "${DOWN}"; done) "${NC}"
# or
printf "%b%b%b%b look down %b%b%b%b\n" "${RED}" $(echo {1..6} | sed "s/[^ ]*/${DOWN}/g") "${NC}"

With above solutions you need to count the number of %b you use.
Perhaps you want something like

msg=" look down "
count=10
for ((i=0;i<${count};i++)); do
    msg="${DOWN}${msg}${DOWN}"
done
printf "%b%b%b\n" "${RED}" "${msg}" "${NC}"

Not printf "%b$msg%b\n" "${RED}" "${NC}", this goes wrong when msg has a %.

simplify repeating input to printf bash

1 Answers1