Shell Programming and Scripting

I've been working on a UNIX script (csh) that will be starting a java application

The goal is to get the version number and location (needed by the application) from the path of the script

Example:
Location of the script= /apps/myapp/versionNum/script/start.csh

I need:
approot=/apps/myapp (as absolute path... no links)
appver=versionNum

I've done a lot of searching and I can't seem to cobble together a solution. Please Help!

Do not use csh for scripting:

Top Ten Reasons not to use the C shell
Csh problems
Csh Programming Considered Harmful

It's easy in a real shell:

Code:

script=/apps/myapp/versionNum/script/start.csh
IFS=/ read -r x a b c d e <<.
$script
.
approot=/$a/$b
appver=$c

Which 'real' shell do you recommend?
csh does seem like a real pain in the a..
However, its what I was given to work with.

To say that csh is not a real shell is a slight overstatement - after all, it is a "shell".

To say that it's a pain, however, is a complete understatement!

This might influence you: most useful shell

The reality of the situation is that I dont care what shell I use. I just want to get the info I need to run my app.

The previous solution will not work in a situation where there is an indeterminate number of parent directories for myapp.

Code:

script=/apps/myapp/versionNum/script/start.csh
IFS=/ read -r x a b c d e <<.
$script
.
approot=/$a/$b
appver=$c

So the bat script that I wrote on the windows side:
A)looks at the current path goes up one directory
B)stores that directories name in a variable
C)goes up another directory
D)stores that path in a variable

Any other ideas?

Code:

$ cat Test
#!/bin/ksh
S=$(echo $PWD/${0##*/})
V=$(echo $S | awk -F/ '{print $(NF-2)}')
P=${S%%/$V*}

echo Script $S
echo Version $V
echo Path preceding version $P

$ ./Test
Script /apps/myapp/versionNum/script/Test
Version versionNum
Path preceding version /apps/myapp

Thanks!

Do you have any recommendations on good places to learn more about UNIX scripting?
I can kind of follow what you are doing but I dont know what some of the syntax is doing.

At some point I would like to be able to transpose scripts between ksh and bash.

Again thanks for your help.