Hi All,

My query seems to be silly but Iam unable to find where the exact problem lies.

I have a script to unzip set of files

here is the script

#!/bin/ksh
Count=`cat /home/gaddamja/Tempfile | wc -l`
while [ $count -ge 1 ]
do
Filename=`cat /home/gaddamja/Tempfile |tail -$Count | head -1`
cd /home/gaddamja/FilesDirectory
`gunzip $Filename`
echo " $Filename unzipped successfully"
$Count=`expr $count - 1`
done
echo "Unzipping completed"

tail: cannot open input

hmm.. whats in Tempfile?

try This

Filename=`cat /home/gaddamja/Tempfile |tail -"$Count" | head -1`

What is the output from these two commands:

file /home/gaddamja/Tempfile

sed -n l /home/gaddamja/Tempfile

There are some imperfections in your script, try this one:

#!/bin/ksh

count=$(wc -l < /home/gaddamja/Tempfile)

cd /home/gaddamja/FilesDirectory

while [ $count -ge 1 ]
do
  Filename=$(tail -$count /home/gaddamja/Tempfile | head -1)
  gunzip $Filename
  echo " $Filename unzipped successfully"
  count=$(($count - 1))
done
echo "Unzipping completed"

Interestingly franklin52 version should generate the same error because $Count is empty at the time of the "tail" command thereby causing "tail - ". Update: franklin52 version now has $count and therefore does not have the problem in that form.

What is weird is why $Count is empty (or has a leading space character) in the original script also causing "tail - ".
Hmm. In many old scripts I have a sed to remove a spurious space character from the output of "wc -l".

The problem is that he's using $count and $Count interchangeably.