Shell Programming and Scripting

Hi... Basically, mycode does following:
it loops through every file in directory and gets second lines of those files (second lines contains IPs).

Then it creates a new file with IP which is greater than other IPs.
I have two problems:
1) when I echo for checking A B C D there are nothing...Why? how to fix it?
2) how create a new IP if i need to check all files....Can I check last file which I created and relating to that last IP just increment it? So basically I have find maximum third oct and then fourth oct. But how to do it?
the maximum of third oct and fourth oct is 254.
So for example:
I have three files:
file1 Katty
192.168.1.254.
file2 Manu
192.168.3.154.
file3 Chris
192.168.2.15

So when I run sh mycode, I will have file
with 192.168.3.155

Code:

FILES=/h/HOME/hosts/*
for f in $FILES
do
secondline=` sed -n '2p' $f `
echo  $secondline | IFS="." read A B C D
#echo $A
#echo $B
#echo $C
#echo $D
if  [  $D -ne 255 ]
then
D=` expr $D + 1 `
else

D=0
C=`expr $C + 1 `
fi

echo $A.$B.$C.$D.



done

Hi,

Could you please post the requirement clearly, with input and proper required output please.

Thanks,
R. Singh

Hi, thanks for replying.

Assume
I have three files in the directory /Users/Manu/files/*:
->cat file1
Katty
192.168.1.254.
-> cat file2
Manu
192.168.3.154.
->cat file3
Chris
192.168.2.15

I run
->sh mycode

Output: I have newfile in the same directory:
->cat newfile
192.168.3.155

( Little explanation: Basically , I find max in third oct then check fourth oct and increment fourth oct if it is not 254. If it is the increment third oct and fourth oct becomes 0 and echo in new file. p.s. no awk please)