Shell Programming and Scripting

OK in that case, if your sed has the -i option you could do something like:

Code:

#!/bin/sh
cp -p FileB FileB.new
while read old new; do
  sed -i "s/$old$/$new/" FileB.new
done < FileA

though a tad expensive, continually updating fileB.new, but I think less expensive than two read loops...

With awk it is more efficient and faster too.

Code:

awk 'NR==FNR {A[$1]=$2;next} A[$3]{$3=A[$3]} 1' FileA FileB > FileB.new

And alternatively with ksh it is efficient and fast too:

Code:

#!/bin/ksh
typeset -A newname;
while read old new; do
  newname[$old]=$new
done < FileA

while read field1a field1b empl; do
  if [[ -n ${newname[$empl]} ]]; then
    empl=${newname[$empl]}
  fi
  echo "$field1a $field1b $empl"
done < FileB > FileB.new

I like the awk approach. How can I use the awk statement for FileA that is 50 lines long?

That is a tiny file. You can use any method you like. Just try it out.

Ok. I used the awk statement (nice!) but this statement only changes the first occurs of the old name to the new name. Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Anthony

Hi pitccorp01, what is the format of fileB then? I thought it was:

Code:

Employee name: old_name1
Employee name: old_name2
Employee name: old_name3

In which case you only need one replacement since there is only one occurrence per line.

My apologies! I gave you the condensed version of FileB. Here is the format of FileB in its entirety:

*/------------------Employee name 1 ---------------------*/
Employee name1:
Address:
City State:
Telephone Number:
Cellular Number:
Department:
Manager:

*/------------------Employee name 2---------------------*/
Employee name2:
Address:
City State:
Telephone Number:
Cellular Number:
Department:
Manager:


The above is repeat for the next employee

FileA contains which employees will be substituted for new employees.

Thanks,
Anthony

But that is still only one field per line. I don't understand why that would not work or what would not work. Can you show me an anonymized sample of what it does to your input? Can you give me an anonymized sample of FileA as well?