Shell Programming and Scripting

We have a FORTRAN program that creates a report for our client. The client makes a number of selections as to what will appear on the report. However, the client has to repeat this everytime the report is run. I am trying to find a way to record what they've selected (their keystrokes) in UNIX and save it so that they can use a shortcut to re-run an identical report without having to re-select everything. I'm rather new to UNIX, so any input would be appreciated.

The simplest approach is to feed those parameters into the FORTRAN code using a shell script. The shell script can write those parms to a file and reuse them.

So in effect the user can rerun any report that has run in the past.

If you give us a sample of the parameters required, we can start a simple template script for you to tinker with. And no you don't need a keylogger for this.

Thank you for the quick response. Sorry it took so long to reply. The problem is that the parameters as determined by the client, are coming into the script from a GUI called winFAST. So we will have to parse out what we need and leave the GUI code out of the script. Then we can pass them back? The user input determines what is put on the report, and the FORTRAN code is using the input values to determine the direction of the the report detail, format and what database file information to retrieve from different database files. Do you know ISAM?

Ok. whoa.

What UNIX /linux are you using?

Winfast, if it is a GUI, still has to talk to something. A shell script is an executable object, just like compiled FORTRAN. It can talk to the shell script, the shell script takes over for the GUI. We basically have an interposing object. The shell script.

The parameter sets for reports have almost always been up to the customer/clients. I don't see a problem. Does somebody in your shop know enough about UNIX to log on to the command line? Or into some desktop GUI like Gnome? If this is not the case you are as you seem to think: doomed in this endeavor.

And I don't see why ISAM is an issue, except for the cost of commercial ISAM packages.

Unix is on IBM AIX version 5100-04. WinFAST (there is a website: gowinfast.com) is sort of a Unix covering. In-house, we only use the AIX editor, not the GUI. While the client is entering via the GUI, they are really sending info, loading the FORTRAN variables with their selected values, and their movements in WinFAST (i.e. which menus they access and which choices they make) are recorded in a file. That is the file that has all that extraneous GUI code. So I'm thinking that we should be able to parse that information from the file and feed it back to a ksh script and save the script so that the client can access it again? I think this is what you meant, if I'm understanding you correctly...

Can you show us, backed by some samples/scenarios, what the program needs (and gets)? Does it get command line parameters, does it read values, from where (terminal, file, ...)?

For example, the client selects this custom report via a radio button on the GUI. This calls the FORTRAN program that creates the report. The client then selects which fields they want on the report. They make the selection via a grid, which is created from the same FORTRAN program. The choices made (i.e. emp name, address, etc.) are fed back to the FORTRAN program - it is basically the same as asking a question on the terminal and reading in the response. Based on various choices the client makes, the FORTRAN program determines the layout of the report and includes those items that the client has chosen. WinFAST is basically a pass-thru to Unix.