OK cheers guys!

A bit more info:

What exactly I want to do is this:

This is a big file, full of filenames and a hashcode for each filename.
each line in the file is
filename, date, hashcode
filename, date, hashcode
...

Anyway, so a file comes into a server, gets a hashcode which is then put into this big log file of mine, and then the file is processed.

Should the file be sent in again to the server, its hashcode is checked and if it exists (ie, my process has dealt with it already) it deals with the file appropriately.

I come unstuck when I need to reprocess the same file again - so I need to edit the large log file and remove the entry (the whole line - name,date,hashcode) so that I can feed it through again.


Write a sh to deal with this? - not sure - its one of those where it happens often, but not often enough to justify a sh....but its something I guess I could look into.


One other thing:

Suppose two people sudos to a user (the same user) first, and then edits the file - you don't get the message about the file changing when you save/quit right? - at least that's what it appears to happen over here in bizarro world...