Shell Programming and Scripting

I have something like in the script. Can anyone explain what does the sort command does and followed by the sed

Code:

sort -r -k3.7,3 -k3.1,3 -k3.4,3 -t: $dir"abc_"$x"_parsed" | sed -e 's/\([0-9]\)\([0-9]\{3\}[^0-9]\)/\1,\2/2' -e 's/\/2,00/\/200/'

The file abc_"$x"_parsed contains something like below

Code:

010031781045376050468:617.96:03/17/2010:EVERGREEN_PACKAG:22_319D162084____4:****:****
010031781045376050489:260.60:03/17/2010:TW_TELECOM______:772206T626477397__:****:****

Well, it seems like the sort command reverse sorts your file on year, month, date, considering ":" as the delimiter, and then the sed command, working on each line, checks for the 2nd occurrence of the pattern that consists of a digit "D" followed by a string "s" that has 3 digits followed by a non-digit, and converts it to "D,s"; and finally, the sed changes the first occurrence of "/2,00" to "/200".

tyler_durden

Whoever wrote it has the filename quoting backwards: the parts that don't need quoting are quoted, and those that need it are not.

Presumably the quotes are there to separate the variable name from adjacent text. For that, braces should be used:

Code:

"${dir}abc_${x}_parsed"

Thanks for your explanations.

Would it be a problem, If I remove the sed from my script. Basically I get a
comma character in my year field If i have this.

I get 2,010 wherein I need 2010.

Can I remove the sed stuff below

---------- Post updated 03-22-10 at 08:00 AM ---------- Previous update was 03-21-10 at 11:58 PM ----------

Can anyone suggest what should I changing in the sed command so that I change only "/2,0" to "/20" instead of "/2,00" to "/200"

I need only the 2 characters of the year fied..

So the "sed" statement should be like this:

Code:

 
sed -e 's/\([0-9]\)\([0-9]\{3\}[^0-9]\)/\1,\2/2' -e 's/\/2,0/\/20/'

Not sure , whether this is what your expecting.

Yeah this is what I meant. Will this work without any implications for the year

Thanks for your inputs

If the year value begins with "20" always, and there's no occurrence of "/2,0" before it, then the year will remain unchanged. In fact, the sed script is not required at all in that case, since the two scripts after "-e" would cancel out each other.
Otherwise, if the year value begins with something other than "20", then it will have the comma after the first digit, unless there's an occurrence of "/2,0" before it.

tyler_durden