Example below shows how to pad zeroes to a number using printf command. It will pad zeroes to the number until the total length is 5. number=13 printf "%05d" ${number} echo number=12345 printf %05d ${number} Output 00013 12345 Linux About the author Xuan Ngo is the founder of OpenWritings.net. He currently lives in Montreal, Canada. He loves to write about programming and open source subjects.