Convert each integer to a simple ASCII graph - bash

Question

I have a file with a bunch of integers like this:
6
2
3
4
3
The goal is to convert those integers in stats like in a videogame, for example, if the number is 6, the stats must be ******----, if the number is 4 the result must be ****------.
I tried the following piece of code but it doesn't work:
# Here I put all the int in a variable.
intNumber=`cat /home/intNumbers.txt`
# This for is a loop to print as much * as the number says.
for i in `seq 1 $intNumber`
do
echo -n "*"
# This for loop is for printing - until reacing 10.
for j in `seq $intNumber 10`
do
echo -n "-"
done
done

Answer 1

With Perl:
perl -ne 'print("*" x $_, "-" x (10-$_), "\n")' file
$_ contains current row
Output:
******----
**--------
***-------
****------
***-------

Answer 2

You may use this awk:
awk '{s = sprintf("%*s", $1, ""); gsub(/ /, "*", s); p = sprintf("%*s", 10-$1, ""); gsub(/ /, "-", p); print s p}' file
******----
**--------
***-------
****------
***-------
A more readable version:
awk '{
s = sprintf("%*s", $1, "")
gsub(/ /, "*", s)
p = sprintf("%*s", 10-$1, "")
gsub(/ /, "-", p)
print s p
}' file

Answer 3

Another awk, keepin' it simple, sir:
$ awk '
BEGIN {
s="**********----------"
}
{
print substr(s,11-$1,10)
}' file
Output:
******----
**--------
***-------
****------
***-------
Similar for bash:
#!/bin/bash
s="**********----------"
while IFS= read -r line
do
echo "${s:((10-$line)):10}"
done < file
A more generic approach for awk could be, for example:
$ awk -v m=10 '{ # desired maximum number of chars
t="" # temp var
for(i=1;i<=m;i++) # loop to max
if(i<=$1) # up to threshold value from file
sub(/^/,"*",t) # prepend a *
else # after threshold
sub(/$/,"-",t) # append a -
print t
}' file
Some input checking could be in order.

Answer 4

Minimizing the work you have to do per input line for efficiency:
$ cat tst.awk
BEGIN {
lgth = 10
curr = base = sprintf("%*s",lgth,"")
gsub(/ /,"*",curr)
gsub(/ /,"-",base)
}
{ print substr(curr,1,$1) substr(base,$1+1) }
$ awk -f tst.awk file
******----
**--------
***-------
****------
***-------
or borrowing #JamesBrowns idea of indexing into a single string:
$ cat tst.awk
BEGIN {
lgth = 10
curr = base = sprintf("%*s",lgth,"")
gsub(/ /,"*",curr)
gsub(/ /,"-",base)
line = curr base
}
{ print substr(line,(lgth-$1)+1,lgth) }
$ awk -f tst.awk file
******----
**--------
***-------
****------
***-------

Answer 5

Don't read the entire input file into memory. Instead, process one line at a time.
The following also demonstrates how to do this more succinctly in Bash.
#!/bin/bash
ten='----------'
while IFS='' read -r num; do
printf -v graph '%10.10s' "${ten:$num}"
echo "${graph// /\*}"
done < intNumbers.txt
printf -v graph places the output in the variable graph, and we then use a Bash parameter substitution to replace the space padding from printf with asterisks.
Demo: https://ideone.com/wE6fpm
Doing this entirely in Bash is attractive if you end up doing this a lot; you generally want to avoid external processes especially in repeated code (though of course don't repeat yourself; put this in a function then.)
If you genuinely want to convert a file of numbers into a bunch of graphs, a single Awk process is still much better; the shell isn't particularly good at that. I'm imagining you have a different application where you occasionally need to format a number as a graph in various places in a Bash script.

Answer 6

A riff on tripleee's answer:
# Repeat a character a specified number of times
#
# parameters
# - character
# - count
#
# usage: strRepeat "*" 60
#
str_repeat() {
local char=$1 count=$2
local result
# string of count spaces
printf -v result "%*s" "$count" ""
# replace spaces with the char
echo "${result// /$char}"
}
while read -r num; do
printf '%s%s\n' "$(str_repeat '*' "$num")" "$(str_repeat '-' $((10-num)))"
done < intNumbers.txt

Answer 7

Another GAWK solution:
awk -v OFS="*" '{NF=($1+1); $1=""; print gensub(/ /,"-","g",sprintf("%-10s",$0))}' file
# -v OFS="*"
# [Sets the output field separator to an asterisk]
# NF=($1+1)
# [Defines the number of fields in the line as 1 more
# than the value in the first (and only) input field.
# If you printed the first line, it would now be "6******"]
# $1=""
# [Deletes the first field in the line, leaving only asterisks]
# sprintf("%-10s",$0)
# [Formats the line as 10 characters, left-justified.
# The missing characters on the right are blank spaces]
# gensub(/ /,"-","g",sprintf("%-10s",$0))
# [Replaces all blank spaces in the sprintf-formatted
# line with hyphens]
# print
# [Prints the line as modified by gensub]

Answer 8

With Python:
python -c "import sys
> for s in sys.stdin: n=int(s); print('*'*n + '-'*(10-n))" < file