Hi there,
I am trying to do somehting similar, but on a wider scale.
I am trying to write a script that would open the home directory, open the first (of 650) user's folder
open the ?mail directory, which every user has

Then I need the script to read each of the files and folder names with one preceding directory and a carriage return as the delimiter.
Then the output is to be put into a file called .mailboxlist


cd /home
cd user1
cd mail
grep ls (this is where I am most stuck – adding the ‘mail/’ before each name and a carriage return as the delimiter) > .mailboxlist (??)
cp .mailboxlist /home/user1/.mailboxlist


The file “.mailboxlist” should look like this:
mail/Sent
mail/Trash
mail/Drafts
mail/tech support
mail/test1


After that is completed, I need the script to go to the next folder (user2) and do it again.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Nett

Are you looking for a snapshot of each of directory's under mail for all user's ?

Unix uses a newline as a line terminator, not a carriage return. This tend to happen automatically. You need to do stuff to suppress it, not get it.

ls | sed 's=^=mail/=' > .mailboxlist

will do what I think you want. If you need something else, tell us what os and shell you are using.