Shell Programming and Scripting

greetings,

i have an executable that reads its config from an xml file. this executable needs to be started as the current user. there is a line in the xml file that contains the following:

Code:

<option name="USER_ID" value="myuserid"/>

the current value is an actual user id (mine) as it was populated when i configured the executable with a supplied gui. what i'd like to do is put $USER there instead. is something like this possible?

joe.

Why do you need to do this?

Whoever starts the executable is, by definition, the current user.

On the surface you will need to run something like sed from a Shell script which has visibility of the value of $USER and edit the master XML and produce the version customised for the current user. It doesn't sound like it needs to be dynamic and could be a one-off bulk proliferation of custom XML.

The task could equally be achieved from multiple high-level computer programming languages.

We know nothing about your "executable", your Operating System, your Shell(s). Anything further would be a random guess.

for the benefit of clarification, i have a bunch of execution nodes that are running rhel 5.4 and the sftwr is a cfd solver. the executable/daemon needs to be running when the solver kicks off as this executable manages the mysqld processes, one for each core/cpu. sort of a quasi mpi scenario. the config file that is parsed by the executable/daemon requires a valid user id as omitting it generates an error. the executable/daemon also needs to be running as the user running the solver. the head node of the cluster launches a wrapper script for the solver on behalf of the user on the execution node(s). this sftwr was clearly not designed to do this but in our environment it's up to me to find a 'one shoe fits all' way of doing it. i may very well move the original config files aside and link them to files with open permissions and go with methyl's suggestion. as always, thanx for chiming in! joe.