need scripting help inserting characters into string

[deftones]

Hello all,

I cannot figure this out for the life of me. I have tried a couple of different methods to do this with awk's printf function but couldn't get it.

basically I have a 12 digit number that I want to place a decimal every 4 characters in the string.

i.e.
string1=abcd12345678
i would want it to be:
string1=abcd.1234.5678

also would like to know how to do the reverse.
thanks.

 

[Guest_imported]

string2=`echo $string1 | cut -c1-4`.`echo $string1 | cut -c5-8`.`echo $string1 | cut -c 9-12`

 

[deftones]

ahh, cut command
thats what I was looking for, thanks.

 

[vgersh99]

echo "yourStringHere" | nawk -f dec.awk


#----------------------- dec.awk------------------

BEGIN {

}

{
len=length($0);
for (i=1; i <= len; i=i+4){
sstr=substr($0, i, 4);
str= (i==1) ? sstr : str &quot;.&quot; sstr
}

printf(&quot;str->[%s] dec->[%s]\n&quot;, $0, str);

}