Shell Programming and Scripting

I know I should be able to see a way of doing this easily, but my brain just won't engage.

I have a script working on an embedded device that checks to see if an item is in a blacklist before performing some actions.

At the moment the code reads thus....

Code:

while read BLACKLIST ; do

execute some code
execute some code

done < /path/to/BLACKLIST.txt

The items in BLACKLIST.txt are single words separated by a \n

I'm trying to replace the BLACKLIST.txt file by putting the list directly into the script as a variable (INBLACKLIST) at the top of the file with each item separated by a space and then using tr " " "\n" to put them on separate lines. This is to try to make the script as portable as possible without relying on any outside dependencies.

What I was hoping to do in the new code was

Code:

echo "$INBLACKLIST" | while read BLACKLIST ; do

execute some code
execute some code

done

This isn't working, the first value gets passed to BLACKLIST but it looks like the while read isn't working.

I'm sure there's a better way to do this but to be honest I'm so tired my brain has frozen up.......can anyone suggest another way.

Thanks in advance and I'm going to put on a fresh pot of coffee in the hope someone out there can help me!!

Change the subject of your thread please.

Please post a snippet of this blacklist.

Something like :

Code:

while read BLACKLIST ; do

execute some code
execute some code

done < ${INBLACKLIST}

If the items are separated by a space in the variable $INBLACKLIST you can do something like:

Code:

for BLACKLIST in "$INBLACKLIST"
do
  # Do something with $BLACKLIST
  # execute some code
done

Hi Guys

Klashxx , that's still piping from a file surely? It doesn't work I'm afraid.


Franklin.

I tried with the variables on INBLACKLIST being either space separated or newline separated and it doesn't work either way, this could be because it's an ASH rather then BASH shell? (embedded device using busybox).

either way the `for BLACKLIST in "$INBLACKLIST"` is reading in all the values in $INBLACKLIST (either on one line or multiple lines as separated).

I have put an echo "$BLACKLIST" immediately after the `for BLACKLIST....` to check.

Any other ideas please chaps?

Oops, try it without the double quotes around $INBLACKLIST in the loop:

Code:

for BLACKLIST in $INBLACKLIST
do
  # Do something with $BLACKLIST
  # execute some code
done

Thanks Franklin

That did it, I can get some sleep for a couple of hours now.

Have a good weekend.