UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Not sure what I'm doing wrong here???? Trying to execute a grep command within a unix script and keep getting an error. Here is an example of the process I'm trying to execute

Code:

a="\"JERRY SMITH\"";
b="/u/tmp/filea";
x=`grep -c $a $b`;
echo $x;

Execute script and this is what I get...

Code:

grep: cannot open file SMITH" for reading: No such file or directory (error 2)
/u/tmp/filea:0

So some odd reason the grep command is taking the second part of variable "A" as the file to search. I thought using "\" will allow you to assign "'s around the value you would like to assign your variable. Hope I'm making sense

You need to quote $a so that it is passed as a single token to grep:

Code:

x=`grep -c "$a" "$b"`

Putting the quotes as a part of the string that is assigned to the variable does not have the effect you are wanting. The contents of the variable are ignored as the shell expands the variable on the command line.

just a try ..

Code:

$ echo $a
"JERRY SMITH"
$ echo $b
filename
$ x=$(sed -n "/$a/p" $b)
$ echo $x
"JERRY SMITH"
$

Thanks guys!