Shell Programming and Scripting

Can anyone please tell me why this wont work! Thanks so much!

#!/bin/sh

for file
do
case $file in
*.*.*)
echo Cannot have more than 1 dot
exit
;;

*'**'*)
echo Cannot have more than 1 asterisk
exit
;;

*'*'*|?.)
echo this is a target

;;

*)
echo This is a file
item = file
;;
esac
done

if [! -e "$item"];
echo The File does not exit
exit
fi

It just says Item not found? Thanks

Two things. You write

Code:

 if [! -e "$item"];
echo The File does not exit
exit
fi

This has two errors and should read

Code:

if [ ! -f "$item" ]; then
   echo "$item does not exist"
   exit
fi

Amend to that and see if that fixes it.

You've also got spaces in your variable assignment, and no $ infront of the file variable name to reference it. You are, in effect, setting the value of item to "file". Another "no, no!"
Do this

Code:

item=$file

as you can see, no spaces either side of the equals.

Elaborate more on the script. What does it do? What is it for? And give the "proper" output from the script.

Cheers
ZB
http://www.zazzybob.com

Also, from your script, it looks like you are using asterisks in file names.

This is a recipe for disaster!!!!

Hi Zazzybob, thanks for the help so far! Ok to elaborate more on what I am trying to do:

Well I'm trying to create a script that looks at parameters followed by a target that that specifies either a new main part of the file name or a new extension part but not both.

Rename File1 File2 File3 *.html

So File1 to File3 are params and *.html is is the target.

Then with my loop Im trying to check the validity of them eg less than 2 params, cant have 2 dots, more than one asterisk and doesnt exist.

Then If there are no errors the files are to be renamed in another loop.

But I'm really struggling with it and Its really beginning to get on my nerves as I dont know what Im doing wrong!

Any Suggestions on how I should do it would be fantastic.

By the way, Im doing this becuase I have loads of files that I want to change extensions on and I want to do it this way because I've been trying for ages.

Again many thanks.

You will need to use:

Rename File1 File2 File3 '*.html'
otherwise if you had "one.html" and "two.html" in your current directory, they would replace *.html on the command line.

Your error arises from your line:
item = file
This cause your script to try to run a program or script called "item" with two args, "=" and "file".

As zazzybob points out you must lose the spaces.
I assume you mean
item=$file

At that point you will be setting "item" in your loop. When you exit the loop, you then check the last value only to see if it exists.

Many shells support -e, and that may be superior to the -f that zazzybob suggests.

Is there any reason to sh? A more powerful shell like ksh or bash would make this easier.

Thanks for that.

Yeah a bash or ksh would probably be more powerful but Im quite new to all this and only really know how to use sh!

Thanks again to you!

Can anyone please help me (again) with this statement:

*'**'*)
echo Cannot have more than 1 asterisk
exit
;;

As you can tell its supposed to drop out if there is more than 1 asterisk, but it doesnt!

Many thanks.

Also can anyone tell me what the structure of these statements are eg I know that * selects the whole string and ? selects a char. But how do I check if there are less than 2 parameters in my statements or if the parameter has to have a dot within the string!

Thank you all so very much (I'm beginning to tear my hair out)!