Shell Programming and Scripting

Hi Guy's.

Hopefully someone can help me with what I am trying to archieve.

So situation currently is, I have a script already setup however I have another script that sits infront of it.

The main script basically goes and searchs multiple platforms for a list of entered data.

In order to set off the second script i need to be able to read the list of entered data and then enter it in a certain format. Details below

user enters the list of details for checking in the below format as an example

Code:

NO1
NO2
NO3
NO4
NO5

When they press enter the command needs to format it as per below

Code:

./scriptname NO1 NO2 NO3 NO4 NO5

This will then work and is what I currently have working, My issue is they may only have for example 3 bits of data to check however as I have set arguements for 1,2,3,4 and 5 so the script wont run.

Does anyone know how I am able to list the arguments however even if they are not all there still run the script but just not including the missing arguement bits.

Any help you can offer would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Please show us what you have. There are hundreds of ways to do this, but to understand what you're doing and how to give you a working solution for your problem it would help a lot to see what you're doing.

Hi Don,
Thanks for your response, Im fairly new to scripting so I am sure there are alot better ways to try and do what I want however its a learning curve for me so any advice you can offer would be much appreciated.

Example below

Code:

#!/bin/sh
echo "Please enter the MSISDN in 44 format then press the return key"?
read MSISDN
read MSISDN1
read MSISDN2
read MSISDN3
read MSISDN4
read MSISDN5
read MSISDN6
echo " Please wait... "
~/singlemsisdn $MSISDN $MSISDN1 $MSISDN2 $MSISDN3 $MSISDN4 $MSISDN5 $MSISDN6

So basically within this script the user would enter MSISDN's, I would like to do up to 100 at a time so in the above format im sure its going to take forever however Im not sure how else to do it at present. Once the user has entered the MSISDN's it needs to put it in the format of ~/SCRIPTNAME followed by each msisdn entered earlier with a space in between. THe only problem the amount of MSISDN's may vary and in the way I was trying to write it because i have defined more arguments than the amount of data the user entered it wont run.

Format of text the user will enter would be like the below

Code:

441234567890
441234567890
441234567890
441234567890

Hope you get the gist.

If i need to try explain clearer let me know.

cheers

What OS are you using? What is the output from the command:

Code:

/bin/sh --version

If /bin/sh is an old Bourne shell, we need to take a different approach than if we can use the arrays that are available when using bash and ksh. Can you use ksh or bash instead of /bin/sh (if /bin/sh isn't already a link to one of those)?

PS. What is 44 format? Would you like the script to validate that values input are in 44 format?

Hi Don,

Output as requested
GNU bash, version 4.1.2(1)-release (x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu)

Not sure if thats enough to answer your question ?

So the user data the user will be inputting is UK mobile numbers... which have to start with 44 (international format). If would be great if it can validate the format prior yes.

Thanks

I generally use ksh, but I can work with bash. Would using ksh instead of bash be OK? (For most shell code, they are identical. But validating phone numbers would be easier for me if I can use some ksh extensions.)

If I understand the UK phone numbering plan, all valid mobile phone and pager numbers in the UK would be in the form +44 7xxx xxxxxx when dialed from the US. Does this agree with what you are expecting?

How do you expect users to enter these numbers:If multiple formats are allowed, what form does singlemsisdn want? Can singlemsisdn take an arbitrary number of operands? Will it only work if given seven operands? Will it only work if given one to seven operands?

How should users indicate that they are done:I'm going to be unavailable for most of the afternoon, but if you can answer these questions, I'll take a look at it tonight.

---------- Post updated at 12:49 ---------- Previous update was at 12:40 ----------

Sorry for double posting. I just looked at your previous messages again. Looking for twelve digit numbers starting with 447 will be easy with either bash or ksh. So, ignore the questions about the format of the input, but I still need answers about how to terminate input and how to group entered data when invoking singlemsisdn.

Sorry,
Don

xargs converts lines to arguments. (Is this your problem?)

Code:

echo "Please enter the MSISDN
in 44 format then press Ctrl-D"
xargs ~/singlemsisdn

A loop allows more control of course - but simplicity first!