Shell Programming and Scripting

Hi,

I am trying to write a shell script to help with some digital signature work currently being undertaken where we have a file that contains a number of rows ending with ^M.

What I need to do is concatenate this using shell scripting and retain the control character. E.G.

Code:

abc^M
def^M
ghi^M

becomes

Code:

abc^Mdef^Mghi^M

I have a file called afile.txt

with contents

Code:

abc^M
def^M
ghi^M

And a script that looks like

Code:

for line in `cat afile.txt`
do
line2=${line2}${line}
done
    echo $line2

This returns:

Code:

ghi

So where am I going wrong? Any help gratefully appreciated.

Thanks.

P.S.

If I remove the ^M from each line it works, but I need to keep ^M in the string.

Hi,

You can use the following line of code;

Code:

cat -v -t afile.txt | paste -s | sed 's/  //g'

Note to get the character that looks like a space between the two slashes, you need to use "ctrl+v ctrl+i"

Regards

Gull04

I maybe missing something, but it returns nothing.

Hi,

What is your OS?

Check the following;

Can you see the original file if you just run the,

Code:

cat -v -t afile.txt

Let me know the above.

Regards

Gull04

You do not go wrong anywhere, but if $line2 contains abc^Mdef^Mghi^M then if you print the variable on your terminal the only thing visible is ghi, because of the CR characters, which move the cursor to the beginning of the line..

Try using set -x or redirecting the variable to a file and you'll see they are there...




--
It is better not to use for line in `cat afile.txt`. Consider using:

Code:

while read line
do
...
done < afile.txt

Code:

cat text.txt | awk '{ORS=""}1'