Read text file in Cshell

phudgens · #1 (**permalink**) 02-10-2009

I've been searching the forums for info on reading a text file in a Cshell script but nothing I'm trying is working. My latest attempt was:

set LASInputFile = `ls *.[Ll][Aa][Ss] | head -1`
echo $LASInputFile
while read line
do
echo $line
done < $LASInputFile

My error message is: while: Expression syntax

Thanks for any help

Paul Hudgens
Denver

joeyg · #2 (**permalink**) 02-10-2009

Just a thought to begin this...
instead of your loop, can you replace it with a cat command?
I would just like to see if the file has anything to process
and/or if there is some kind of file error.

quirkasaurus · #3 (**permalink**) 02-10-2009

looks like you're combining flow expression syntax for different shells....
"read" is a Bourne / Korn shell built-in... not csh.

why not just this:

Code:

set LASInputFile = `ls *.[Ll][Aa][Ss] | head -1`
echo $LASInputFile
cat $LASInputFile

phudgens · #4 (**permalink**) 02-10-2009

Thanks for the input. The cat command does display my file to the screen correctly. By the way, I'm not sure if I should reply to the user link or via Quick Reply.

stanleypane · #5 (**permalink**) 02-10-2009

Code:

set LASInputFile = `ls *.[Ll][Aa][Ss] | head -1`

set i=`cat $LASInputFile | wc -l`
set j=1

while ($j <= $i)

  set line=`cat $LASInputFile | head -$j | tail -1`

  @ j = $j + 1

  # do your thing with $line here.
  # for this example, we'll just echo
  # it back the screen
 
  echo $line

end

phudgens · #6 (**permalink**) 02-11-2009

I'm getting the error message: Unknown user: VERSION

The following is the first line of my file:
~VERSION

Some of the lines in my file begin with a tilde. Is that causing a problem? Also I'm setting i=100 since what I'm after is in the top 100 lines of an otherwise very long file.

set LASInputFile = `ls *.[Ll][Aa][Ss] | head -1`
echo $LASInputFile
set j=1
while ($j <= 100)
set line=`cat $LASInputFile | head -$j | tail -1`
@ j = $j + 1
echo $line
end

Thanks for the help,

Paul H.

stanleypane · #7 (**permalink**) 02-11-2009

Sorry, I've made some slight changes to your script:

Code:

set LASInputFile = `ls *.[Ll][Aa][Ss] | head -1`
echo $LASInputFile
set j=1
while ($j <= 100)
set line="`cat $LASInputFile | head -$j | tail -1`"
@ j = $j + 1
echo "$line"
end

I put quotes around the "set line" and "echo" portions of the script. This will stop the shell from evaluating ~VERSION as if it was a home directory.

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