mjhjmtu

I need to do IFS=",";echo 1..5 so that it can output 1,2,3,4,5 instead of 1 2 3 4 5. How do I make bash echo 1..5 and output the values with a comma?

With Bash's builtins:

This is a bit ugly since we need to separate the 5 to avoid a trailing comma:

$ printf '%s,' 1..4; echo 5
1,2,3,4,5

Though since printf can output directly to a variable, that can be worked around and the final comma removed with a parameter expansion:

$ printf -v tmpvar "%s," 1..5; echo "$tmpvar%,"
1,2,3,4,5

Or with "$*", which joins using the first character of IFS. This trashes global state, but you could rather easily avoid that by running it in a subshell or in a function with local IFS:

$ IFS=,; set -- 1..5; echo "$*";
1,2,3,4,5

If the limits are in variables, it's probably easiest to just do it manually with a loop since you can't use variables as endpoints in a brace expansion range. Again, the upper limit is in a special case:

a=1; b=5
for (( i=a ; i<b ; i++ )); do
 printf "$i,";
done;
printf "$bn" 

Try to use:

seq --separator="," 1 5

If you allow for spaces along with commas, try

$ echo 1..5,
1, 2, 3, 4, 5,

Since you're using numerical brace expansion, the only spaces that will ever appear are the ones between numbers, so you could post-process the result:

output=$(echo 1..5 | tr ' ' ',')

or

output=$(echo 1..5 | sed 's/ /,/g')

This is more to further expand on expansion than to provide a practical solution: what follows is surely less concise/efficient that the alternatives proposed in other answers.

In bash, The Internal Field Separator (IFS) is not used for brace expansion (so, IFS=","; echo 1..5 won't work as you would like).

It is used, however, when expanding a few other things. A complete list being far beyond my level of competence, here are a couple of examples that use brace expansion and , as the value of IFS to create the output you are looking for:

Positional parameters

About the expansion of the special parameter *, quoting man bash,

When the expansion occurs within double quotes, it expands to a single word with the value of each parameter separated by the first character of the IFS special variable.

We can use a function to exemplify:

$ function fnc () 
> IFS=','
> echo "$*"
> 
$ fnc 1..5
1,2,3,4,5

Arrays

When accessing the items of an array using the * subscript, again, quoting man bash,

If the word is double-quoted, $name[*] expands to a single word with the value of each array member separated by the first character of the IFS special variable, ...

An example:

$ arr=( 1..5 ) # Populate an array using brace expansion and compound assignment
$ IFS=','
$ echo "$arr[*]" # Reference all the items with the * subscript
1,2,3,4,5