Shell Programming and Scripting

hi
I have posted it earlier but i was unable to put my exact problem.This time posting in parts.
I have a text file which i had transferred to UNIX.It has strings like:

alter table table_name add (column_name);
as well as modify options.

now i need to read the table name between alter table and add for all such strings.Then need to check itz availability in my database(this part i can do).

Please help me with code.I need to do it in SH if possible.

If you have all the alter statements in one line.. You can use something like this

Code:

cut -d' ' -f3 filename

This will get the tablenames alone.

hi ashwin but the strings in my file is in one field.i need to extract the table_name from each string where this is between alter table add add.then i need to store the extracted data in a file.i got the answer to do it in sed but i need to do it in awk.how can i do it using awk?

can u help me

Maybe

Code:

awk '/^alter table/ {print $3}' file > table.names