Hello,

I have a src code file where I need to uncomment many lines.

The lines I need to uncomment look like,

Code:

C      CALL l_r(DESNAME,DESOUT, 'Gmax',     ESH(10),  NO_APP, JJ)

The comment is the "C" in the first column. This needs to be deleted so that there are 6 spaces preceding "CALL". The key on this line is 'Gmax'. This lets me know that the line needs to be uncommented.

I have a list of such keys

Code:

Gmax
Gmin
HS10
HS2
HS9
Hmax

Each key (including the single quotes) will occur only once in the src file being processed. I need to process the list file to look in the src file and uncomment the proper lines. There are about 300 keys in the list file.

This is what I tried,

Code:

#! /bin/bash

# file with list of items to find in modify_file
list_file=$1
# file for which a modified copy will be created
modify_file=$2
# final output file
new_file='new_'$modify_file

# copy the file being modified
cp -f $modify_file  work_on_file.txt

# loop through all the lines in the list_file
while IFS= read -r line
do

   # add single quotes
   look_for=\'$line\'

   echo "looking for line with " $look_for

   # look for the value in the current line
   # if the value is found on a line, print the substring of $0 skipping the first character
   # if the value is not on the line, just print the line
   awk -v find_to_modify=$look_for ' { if ($0 ~ find_to_modify)
                                          { print substr($0,2); }
                                       else
                                          { print $0; }
                                     } ' work_on_file.txt > new_file

   # rename the modified file from this loop for the next loop
   mv new_file  work_on_file.txt

done < "$list_file"

# rename final copy
mv work_on_file.txt  $new_file

This simply reads the list file and one at a time looks for the items in the file to modify. The awk code looks for the presence of the key on each line (including the single quotes) and if found prints the substring skipping the first character. When the key is not found on the line, the line is printed unmodified. After the key is processed, the akw modified file is renamed to be the file awk is working on for the next loop.

This works as far as I can tell. I am writing an entire copy of the modified file for each key in the list file, so this is not very efficient. The file renaming at the end of the loop is a bit kludgy as well. This only takes about 7 seconds to run, so maybe I am being picky and should just let it be but I thought I would ask if there were other suggestions.

LMHmedchem