Shell Programming and Scripting

Hi, I was wondering if anybody can help me with the following script problem:

I need to execute a command on two sets of 23 files. The command needs 4 input files: two of them will be the same for all 23 files (stable_1 and stable_2) and another two are varying from 1 to 23. The varying input files are of two types with names like 1to23_step.extention1 and 1to23_step.extenstion2

I've tried the following script:
for i in *_step.extention1
do
./executable -o stable_1 -p stable_2 -i $i_step.extension1 -v $i_step.extension2 > $i_output
done

Here's the problem:
line 1: $i_right: ambiguous redirect

Any help will be greatly appretiated! Many thanks in advance!

Have you defined your shell which you like to use ?
1st line something like:
#!/usr/bin/ksh

make copy of your ./e... lines and echo it = you will see the command line = run it manually, do you get same error ?

You need to use {} with variable in this case because shell try to use variable ex.
i_step.extension1. You maybe try to tell that ${i}step.extension1 = variable i + some constant string.

Code:

#!/usr/bin/ksh
for i in *_step.extention1
do
   echo "./executable -o stable_1 -p stable_2 -i ${i}_step.extension1 -v ${i}_step.extension2 >$i_output"
   ./executable -o stable_1 -p stable_2 -i ${i}_step.extension1 -v ${i}_step.extension2 > ${i}_output
done

Hi kshji,
Many thanks for your suggestion.
For some reason my computer doesn like #!/usr/bin/ksh; it complains with -bad interpreter: No such file or directory

I also tried to put i into {}, now the error is:
./test.txt: line 1: 8625 Segmentation fault

Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance

---------- Post updated at 01:21 PM ---------- Previous update was at 01:15 PM ----------

I've tried echo the command lines and basically it looks good with {i}, but it seems to be confused about the output. Is there any way I can name my output in numbers from 1 to 23 as the inout files?

---------- Post updated at 01:25 PM ---------- Previous update was at 01:21 PM ----------

it tries to create output with names like i_step.extension1_output

Thanks in advance!

You must look, where is your *sh.
Usually /bin/ksh or /usr/bin/ksh or maybe someone has installed ksh to /usr/local/bin

Or download it.

I'm a new user to UNIX and am not sure what you mean by "look where is my *sh". Could you may be suggest how can I look for it?

Thanks a lot!

Code:

echo $SHELL

According to your for loop you are looking for files with the names that end in _step.extention1.

Code:

 
for i in *_step.extention1
do
./executable -o stable_1 -p stable_2 -i $i_step.extension1 -v $i_step.extension2 > $i_output
done

The issue is that when you go to do the execute you are using $i which is say temp_step.extention1. So the line would read

Code:

./executable -o stable_1 -p stable_2 -i temp_step.extention1_step.extention1 -v temp_step.extention1_step.extention2  > temp_step.extension1_output.

Is this teally what you are looking for?