UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi ,

This might sound little familar to you guys, but am struck with something.

i have an IF conditioned loop which will determine a variable to get used in the later part of the script.

Code:

if [ blah = blah ];
then
     if [ blah1=blah ];
     then
        Var_name="This is first line.This is second line.This is third line"

Now, when am using this Var_name in the later part of the script as mentioned below, its appearing as a whole line.

Code:

echo "For testing purpose ${Var_name}"

Please let me know what am doing here.

Note : I tried using single commands of echo -e "\n" in a shell script, its working fine. But when i tried to execute in a 50 lines shellscript its not working.
I tried to search in the forum ,for solutions, but am not able to find it. Hence , am posting a new thread.

Thanks,
P

The simplest way is to actually use newlines...

Code:

Var_name="This is first line.
This is second line.
This is third line."

... remembering, of course, to quote the variable when used to preserve them in the output...

Code:

$ echo "$Var_name"
This is first line.
This is second line.
This is third line.

$ echo $Var_name
This is first line. This is second line. This is third line.

Thanks Scott for your quick and prompt reply.

This method i have tried, but its not working as expected.
Let me give the complete overview of it ,
The Var_name is used as an variable to display the values in the HTML format table cell in mail as mentioned below,

Code:

<td ><b>Variable is :</b></td><td>"${Var_name}"</td>

Its not appearing as

Code:

"This is first line. 
This is second line. 
This is third line."

Could you please suggest here ?

Then it is an HTML issue.
Try the HTML tag <br>

Code:

Var_name="This is first line.<br>
This is second line.<br>
This is third line."

Wow !! that works like Charm !!! thanks alot.

Now, in the same script, am using the same variable Var_name in an sed function to be parsed to replace a value with the variable value.
Original code :

Code:

sed 's/oldvalue/'"${Var_name}"'/g'

and its failing to get replaced,
Sed: Function s/oldvalue/##This is First Line. <br> cannot be parsed.

Is there any other options which we can do to get sorted.

Thanks in advance.
P

MadeInGermany is correct, but you probably want to know why:

If you check the HTML source code you produce you will see that indeed there are three lines as Scott said and suggested. HTML source code, though, is not displayed as it is when you display it using a web browser. The browser interprets it and part of this interpretation is to "interpret away" the line breaks.

MadeInGermany just put the HTML equivalent of line breaks (the "<br />" tags) into the text, which will - when interpreted by a web browser - produce line breaks. Notice, that your text will, when showed in a web browser, look the same if you write:

Code:

Var_name="This is first line.<br />
This is second line.<br />
This is third line."

or

Code:

Var_name="This is first line.<br />This is second line.<br />This is third line."

because the "away-interpretation" of real line breaks works both ways: the browser simply ignores them and it will also ignore their absence.

I hope this helps.

bakunin

/PS: remove the (real) line breaks from your variables content, the browser would ignore them anyway. Their existence is probably the reason why your sed-statement is failing: web browsers ignore line breaks, but sed does not.

Thanks bakunin, that was an good explanation.

And yes i understand that because of the <br/> only my sed is not functioning.

But, am just looking for the options for both of them to work , is there any ?

If not will have to figure out assigning different variables but that's not feasible.