Question

Bash script to parse line by line

Asked by: jameswalt

I have a file with the following format:
d    28854           cpmnt    open     username  owner  3   062 description of problem
d    28855           cpmnt    open     username  owner  3   062 description of problem
d    28859_d           cpmnt    open     username  owner  3   062 description of problem


I need to "grab" the second token of every line, no matter how large the token is. The 2nd token is characterized by whitespace delimerters on both sides. (generally spaces, but I would like to be able to handle tabs as well).
I would like generate a new file and insert onto each line the 2nd token from this first file.
This is a fun programming excercise. I have been working on it for a little while now, but just do not know the commands wlel enough to be able to get it where i need it to be.

The faster the response on this, the more points I will add to the question, and the better grade I will offer. Please help!

Here is the relevant portion of the script that I have so far (not a big deal at all)
It simply reads in the file line by line and outputs it to the terminal

# START OF SCRIPT
exec < currentDefectsLog
while read line
do
echo $line
done
#END OF SCRIPT

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Asked On
2004-05-04 at 07:57:03ID20977349
Tags

bash

,

line

,

file

,

read

,

script

Topic

Linux Programming

Participating Experts
2
Points
100
Comments
9

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Answers

 

by: PaulS_IIIPosted on 2004-05-04 at 08:51:20ID: 10987933

try:

echo $line | awk '{ print $2 }'

That should work for ya


Paul

 

by: jameswaltPosted on 2004-05-04 at 09:04:21ID: 10988065

That works nicely!

Any idea how to make it so that it starts reading/printing on the third line?

 

by: jameswaltPosted on 2004-05-04 at 09:05:21ID: 10988077

also, have it so that it stops on the 2nd to last line?

Ill up the points if you can help me with these.

 

by: PaulS_IIIPosted on 2004-05-04 at 09:13:42ID: 10988154

Don't know that this is the best way but you could set an accumulator and increment it

x=1

exec < currentDefectsLog
while read line
do

if [ $x -gr 1 ]
then
echo $line | awk '{ print $2 }'
fi

x=(($x + 1))
done

that will get you to start at line 2

Then to stop at the second line from the end we can do this

filelinecount=` wc - l | cat currentDefectsLog`

then inside the while we can do this

exec < currentDefectsLog
while read line
do

if [ $x -gr 1 ]
then
echo $line | awk '{ print $2 }'
fi

if [ $x -eq (($filelinecount - 2)) ]
then
exit 0
fi

x=(($x + 1))

done

put it all together and I think that will take care of it.

Let me know if you require additional help.

Paul

 

by: jameswaltPosted on 2004-05-04 at 10:15:10ID: 10988837

i have not tried those out yet.. but how do I say:

"if a directory does NOT exist then do whatever" ?

ive tried

if [ ! -d directory]
then
  run some code
fi


but that doesnt work.

 

by: PaulS_IIIPosted on 2004-05-04 at 10:22:13ID: 10988904

That is the way I check my directories.  

One thing I have learned though is there must be spaces between the braces and the test cirteria:
[ ! -d directory ]

If there are no spaces, things tend not to work.

Oh and another thing, in the code I gave you above you might need to change it a bit. I think the x=(($x + 1)) should probably be x=$(x + 1). Try it both ways.

Paul

 

by: jameswaltPosted on 2004-05-04 at 10:25:38ID: 10988936

n/m i got it

 

by: jameswaltPosted on 2004-05-04 at 11:52:28ID: 10989699

Thank you for your continuous help. I will add more points as soon as soon as a refund comes in from an unanswered question.

How would I make the script do the following:

read a file line by line where each line is a single token of alphanumeric characters, and "_" characters
  **trim white spaces from line**
  if line is NOT blank then
    if directory /defects/$line exists then
      delete /defects/$line
    fi
  fi
done

I tried doing this:

#---start of script

while read line
do
        line= echo $line | awk '{print $0}'
        if [ -n $line ]
        then
                if [ -d "/defects/$line" ]
                then
                        rm /defects/$line -f -r
                fi
        fi
done

#--- end of script

it almost works - except one thing. if it encounters a line with just whitespace on it, it will delete the /defects directory - when I never want that deleted as it is. i want to skip all blank lines.

 

by: da99rmdPosted on 2004-05-05 at 04:44:17ID: 10994998

ill have a shorter one for you

#!/bin/bash
#start
#Usage ./scriptname <file>

#Gives you the total number of lines in the file
nrow=`wc -l $1 | awk '{print $1}'`
#Nr or rows to tail the file with all rows - 3
rowtail=$(($nrow - 3))
#Nr or rows to head the file with all rows - 2
rowhead=$(($rowtail - 2))

#Output the right fields
tail -n $rowtail $1 | head -n $rowhead | awk '{ print $2 }'

#end

/Rob

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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