Insert characters Into a string in bash?

Question

I need to turn the string "125959" into "12:59:59".

Obviously, the string is the time so regular expressions aren't much good here.

http://unstableme.blogspot.in/2009/09/insert-after-certain-characters-awk-and.html — perilbrain, Sep 01 '12 at 19:53

score 81 · Accepted Answer · edited Mar 02 '23 at 18:25

81

time=125959
echo "${time:0:2}":"${time:2:2}":"${time:4:2}"

edited Mar 02 '23 at 18:25

bvargo

answered Sep 01 '12 at 19:42

Ansgar Wiechers

score 23 · Answer 2 · answered Sep 01 '12 at 19:50

23

I like sed:

time=125959
sed -e "s/\(..\)\(..\)\(..\)/\1:\2:\3/" <<< "$time"

answered Sep 01 '12 at 19:50

Chen Levy

8

If you're using GNU sed try `sed -e 's/../:&/2g' <<< "$time` – potong Sep 02 '12 at 01:06

2 Answers2