[gauranggandhi]

hi,
i want to remove the leading and trailing space from a file
likewise

output of the finger command will b ein format of:

Login Name Tty Idle Login Time Office Office Phone

where there will be variable number of space in between login and name field.

i want to make all the fields separated by just one white space, so i can use cut command with the delimiter whitespace to extract each separated field.
my problem is i dont have to use sed or awk commands to do this script. please help me.

your help is highly apreciated.

many thanks

[pdreyer]

Originally Posted by gauranggandhi

problem is i dont have to use sed or awk

I guess you mean you are not allowed to use awk or sed in this homework assignment. What commands have you learned so far? Maybe use tr -s