Sorry, @ilkkachu, brain fart.

Anyone know how I could variably pad text with printf?

say I had a variable length string but wanted the output to always be padded 80 columns, I could do like pad=$((80-${#string})) but then how do I use $pad?

printf has that capability built in, just set 80 as the field width

printf "%80s" "$string"

Yes but if I want printf '%s %80s' "$variable_length_string" "$string2"

I want string2 to be padded 80 columns regardless of the length of the first string

@jesse_b Pad $variable_length_string to the right?

printf "%-80s %s\n" "$variable_length_string" "$string2"

no

(Not sure I'm understanding what result you are expecting, sorry)

I have sort of a janky solution

string1=foo
padsize=$((80-${#string1}))
printf '%s' "$string1"
printf '%*s' "$padsize"
printf '%s\n' pass

oh actually yes hah

Ah, good.

thank you

I guess I actually wanted right padding

You're welcome!