Path: csiph.com!aioe.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: "Zangune" Newsgroups: alt.comp.lang.shell.unix.bourne-bash Subject: tr squeeze repeats does not remove multiple spaces coming from a piped du command Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2018 17:05:43 +0200 Organization: Aioe.org NNTP Server Lines: 31 Message-ID: Reply-To: "Zangune" NNTP-Posting-Host: sTtZ1UIg/NXk8aO3UtBd6Q.user.gioia.aioe.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="Windows-1252"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Complaints-To: abuse@aioe.org X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.7246 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Priority: 3 X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.5931 X-Notice: Filtered by postfilter v. 0.8.3 Xref: csiph.com alt.comp.lang.shell.unix.bourne-bash:235 Greetings, I want to know the total size of a directory content, so I use this command: du -c /path | tr -s ' ' but I got this (this is just the last line): 510 total please note that there are 4 spaces between "0" and "t". I would expect the result to be: 510 total please note that there is just one space between "0" and "t". As far as I can see, the "du" command result is alined in columns with spaces, but the "tr" command does not remove those repeated spaces like it does in echo 'a b' | tr -s ' ' Why doesn't a "tr" command with the "squeeze repeats" option remove repeated spaces of a piped "du" command result? Please note that I found a workaround, this one: echo $(du -c /path) but I am more interested in the theoretical problem solution (and logic), rather than the practical one. Regards.