Re: [SLE] A shell programing question

01 02 03 ... 10 11 12..

That's because I need the zero before the number when the number is below 10.

Oh dear... (after looking at previous proposals) This is SOO simple: printf %02d $cnt (You may use `printf %4d $cnt` to make the decimal representation of cnt (at least) 4 characters long; printf is a builtin shell command.) Example: declare -i cnt=0 # declare integer counter <loop begin statement> string="`printf %02d $cnt`" # string= "00","01","02"..."09","10","11"... cnt=$cnt+1 # increment integer counter <loop end statement> Wolly -- Some operating systems are called "user friendly". Linux, however, is "expert friendly".