Login or Register to Ask a Question and Join Our Community


Shell Programming and Scripting

Problem with cat

Login to Discuss or Reply to this Discussion in Our Community

 
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Top Forums Shell Programming and Scripting Problem with cat
# 1  
Old 10-20-2011
Problem with cat
Hey all this is probably something simple but not sure why I am getting this error. Any help is appreciated.

Expected output:

Code:
$ ./ex_01.ksh word1 word2 word3 word4
arguments: word1 word2 word3 word4
Number of arguments: 4

what I am getting:

Code:
./ex_01.ksh word1 word2 word3 word4
cat: /usr/local/bin/temp1: No such file or directory
arguments: word1 word2 word3 word4
Number of arguments: -1

Here is my script:

Code:
#!/usr/bin/ksh

#variables
tempFile=/usr/local/bin/temp1
wc=`cat $tempFile | wc -w`
total=`expr $wc - 1`

#display user arguments.
echo arguments: $1 $2 $3 $4 |tee $tempFile
echo "Number of arguments: $total"
wait 2
rm -rf $tempFile

# 2  
Old 10-20-2011
That's a useless use of cat. wc -w < filename

cat means what it says: That file doesn't exist yet. It doesn't exist until you run something which creates it, like your tee does.

You don't need to redirect into a file then count words in a file to find out how many arguments you have. That can easily give a wrong answer when arguments contain spaces. There's built-in variables for "all arguments" and "number of arguments".

Your entire program for the specification you gave would be:

Code:
echo "arguments: $*"
echo "Number of arguments:  $#"

Last edited by Corona688; 10-20-2011 at 01:06 PM..
This User Gave Thanks to Corona688 For This Post:
linuxn00b
# 3  
Old 10-21-2011
Thanks for your help Corona. I have a tendency to make things harder then they need to be. I did not know about the "$#" that is very useful. Thanks again for your help. Smilie
# 4  
Old 10-21-2011
No problem.

I suggest the advanced bash scripting guide. You use ksh, not bash, but there's huge amount of overlap.

Especially useful are the Reference Cards, like:
This User Gave Thanks to Corona688 For This Post:
linuxn00b
Login or Register to Ask a Question

Previous Thread | Next Thread

10 More Discussions You Might Find Interesting

1. Shell Programming and Scripting

Problem with egrep and cat

Hello, I want to find some keywords in a dd image. I have created a keyword file (1.txt) and search the dd image using, cat /media/sdb1/test/c.dd.001 | strings | egrep -i --color -f 1.txt It works, But how can I get the file name and path? Many thanks. (7 Replies)
Discussion started by: yzy9951
7 Replies

2. Shell Programming and Scripting

Problem with cat

I am trying to use the following code: cat *.txt > OutPutFile.txt Using files with a expression in one single line that always end with " ; " something like this: Block1.txt Block2.txt Block3.txt The expected result should be something like this: OutPutFile.txt: My code works OK in this... (4 Replies)
Discussion started by: Xterra
4 Replies

3. Shell Programming and Scripting

problem using CAT command in PERL

Hi All, I was trying to run the cat command using perl SCRIPT for my daily reports. However cat command is not working in PERL. please help me. cat FILE1.txt |cut -d "|" -f1 >INPUT1.txt cat FILE2.txt|wc -l *9111*|>INPUT2.txt paste INPUT1,INPUT2 >OUTPUT.txt Thanks in advance ... (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: adaleru
3 Replies

4. Shell Programming and Scripting

Formatting problem with cat, egrep and perl

Hi guys I'm using the following script to change input file format to another format. some where I'm getting the error. Could you please let me know if you find out? cat input.txt|egrep -v ‘^#'|\ perl -ane ‘if (@F>3){$_=~/(chr.+):(\d+)\ s()/;print $1,”\t”,$2,”\t”,($2+35),”\n”}'\ > output.bed ... (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: repinementer
1 Replies

5. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Help me with a little problem with command cat

Hi I am having a little trouble understanding how to use this cat command. My question is the following: write a command to create a file called catFiles that contains three copies of the file catFile. If you can help me to understand how to create this, I would be very greatful. Thanks... (2 Replies)
Discussion started by: rushhour
2 Replies

6. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Difference between cat , cat > , cat >> and touch !!!

Hi Can anybody tell the difference between Difference between cat , cat > , cat >> and touch command in UNIX? Thanks (6 Replies)
Discussion started by: skyineyes
6 Replies

7. UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users

Problem with cat with PERL Substitute

system("cat FILENAME | perl -e 'while(<>) { print $_;}'"); system("cat FILENAME | perl -e 'while(<>) { $_ =~ s/XXX/YYY/g; print $_;}'"); First command works fine but second command gives the following error: syntax error at -e line 1, near "{ =~" syntax error at -e line 1, near ";}"... (2 Replies)
Discussion started by: jingi1234
2 Replies

8. Shell Programming and Scripting

cat problem

Hello again; I have a file in this format ./this is/first/1 ./this is/second/2 ./this is/third/3 and i am using this file in a for loop with cat command like this for i in `cat directory.txt` do .......... done Bu there is a problem because my directory is "this is" but... (7 Replies)
Discussion started by: redbeard_06
7 Replies

9. Shell Programming and Scripting

cat file problem

Hi, I wnat to read a fiel line by line and store each line in a variabel, so I made a for loop: for i in `cat file` ; do #do sth. done; The problem is, that in the file, there are lines with only asterisks like this... (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: bensky
3 Replies

10. UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users

Problem with cat

On Solaris 5.8 in ksh, I have a sample.txt with contents A 105 305 B 205 405 C 100 198 ....................... when I do a cat sample.txt the O/P is exactly as above but when I do a echo `cat sample.txt` the O/P changes to A 105 305 B 205 405 C 100 198........... Everything is... (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: macrulez
3 Replies
Login or Register to Ask a Question