I am trying to add a unique string to a variable to prevent some name space collisions.

DATAFILE=/u001/app/unica/affinium644/campaign/partitions/limited/tmp/ebf9aaah.t~#
DATETIME=`date +%Y%m%d_%H%M%S`
echo $DATAFILE > tmpnme.txt
sed 's_/_ _g' tmpnme.txt > tmpnme2.txt
DATA=$(cat tmpnme2.txt)
TMPNAME=$(echo $DATA | awk '{print $9}')
TMPNAE2=$(echo ${TMPNAME%.*})
TBLNAME=$(echo ${DATETIME}${TMPNAE2})
rm tmpnme.txt
rm tmpnme2.txt

TBLNAME will be used as the table name and the datafile is unique but I would be just as satisfied to use a random string or something else.

Any help would be appreciated. I am sure this could be done much more efficiently.

Hi,

I think that the 'mktemp' command (which create a temporary
file with a *unic* name) can be usefull here:

# Create ('-c' option) a 0-length file in the tmp area
typeset -i RC
typeset LP_FILE_PATH=$(mktemp -c); RC=$?
if [[ ${RC} -ne 0 ]]; then
echo "ERROR: cannot create a temporary file"
return ${RC}
fi

# Extract the file name (supposed to be unic)
typeset LP_UNIC_NAME=${LP_FILE_PATH##*/}
# ...
# Do your stuff
# ...

# Don't forget to cleanup the temporary area!
# (to be done at the *END*)
rm -f ${LP_FILE_PATH}

Hope it helps,
C.

I don't seem to have mktemp on my server.