Shell Programming and Scripting

hello..

my prob is as follows:

i have to read from a file which may have different formats depending upon the delimiter used in the data of the file.now i need that the user input the delimiter.the input delimiter is stored in a variable and is used on cut command to retrieve necessary info.now the prob arises here since the cut command accepts only a single character as a delimiter and so the delimiter is not possible to be specified dynamically to the cut command

i have also tried to modify the IFS system variable but to no avail

can anyone kindly help me out please?

I think i understood your problem. Clear the following doubts,

1. How many delimiters will your data file have. Even the delimiter changes dynamically there will be only one delimiter throughout the file no?

If there is only one delimiter, and you want to get the delimiter as input, the following shell script will help you

Code:

/export/home/test/mons/UnixForum>cat comma_del.dat
hai,welcome,to,UnixForum

Code:

/export/home/test/mons/UnixForum>cat cut_dyn_del.sh
#!/bin/ksh
delimiter=$1
datafile=$2
data=`cut -d"$delimiter" -f1 $datafile`
print "First column is " $data

Code:

/export/home/test/mons/UnixForum>cut_dyn_del.sh , comma_del.dat
First column is  hai

Code:

/export/home/test/mons/UnixForum>cat  pipe_del.dat
Unixforum | welcomes | you

Code:

/export/home/test/mons/UnixForum>cut_dyn_del.sh "|" pipe_del.dat
First column is  Unixforum

hi mona...thanks a lot...actually i had been doing the same thing but i am still getting an error...

let me send u my code fragment....


GRPSEP=':'

if [ $FORMAT -eq 1 ]
then
echo $GRPSEP
COMMAND=`head -$CNT $TEMP_FILE | tail -1 | cut -f2 -d"$GRPSRP"`
exit

i am gettin the foll error on the execution of the above script....
cut: option requires an argument -- d
Try `cut --help' for more information.


can u pl help me find my prob...?

welllll got the error ...that was so foolish of me...

i have used two diff names at two diff places....GRPSEP and GRPSRP...

thanks for ur help..

bye