Shell Programming and Scripting

Hi all - I'm completely stumped by a script I'm working on...

The short version is I have a file called 'lookup' and in it are hundreds of names (first and last). I have a script that basically allows the user to enter a name, and what I need to have happen is something like this:

Record <name> added at line 5.

so lookup looks like this:

Code:

Homer Simpson
Jane Doe
John Doe
Barney Rubble

(etc...)

User then adds 'Fred Flinstone' (sorry for the use of creative names...)
And it would come back (using the file above)
Record Fred Flinstone added at line 3

So basically (there's a lot of stuff snipped out obviously) but the script basically looks like this:

Code:

echo -n "Enter name:  "
read name
echo $name >> lookup

and there's where I'm stuck. My next line is something like this:

Code:

echo -n "Record $name at line "

And that's it - I can search the lookup file using: nawk /$name/ lookup - but I can't figure out how to get the damned line number

Any help would be appreciated...

EDIT: Sorry, I forgot to add that I'm sorting the file by last names.... (that's the reason why - using the example above - 'fred flinstone' would go in at line 3 (obviously sorted file would have 'jane doe, john doe, fred flinstone, barney rubble, homer simpson' in that order...)

You can use wc -l < file , so after the line is added, you'll know how many lines are in the file..

Code:

nl file |awk .................

will add line numbers to the file, then adjust whatever awk script you have to account for the added first field.

How about (quick and dirty)

Code:

echo $name | sort -k2 - file | awk "/$name/ {print \"record $name at \" NR}"
record Fred Flinstone at 3

So this works perfectly with one exception:

EDIT: So this is a weird bug (sorta): I was using a test file (with made up names) and running this command against my file - and it appears to be matching either the first or last name, and if one of them match - it works...

ie.

Code:

name=Destiny Cat
<the command above>

Destiny Cat found at line 3
Destiny Cat found at line 5 (but this is actually Destiny Dog)

So it found Destiny in both cases - even though the last name on one is Cat and the other is Dog. ie. it's not searching for the full name ... I'll keep toying around with it. But if someone sees a quick solution - I'll be back.

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why it deletes all the contents of the file when I add" > file" after sort? "sort -k2 file > file".If the name already exist then we dont add it. how should we do?Thank you!

If you're saying that only want to add the given name to your file (without checking to see whether or not that name was already in the file, AND you don't need the line where it was added, the way to do that would be:

Code:

echo $name | sort -k2 - file -o file

and if you wanted to only add that name if it was not already in the file:

Code:

echo $name | sort -u -k2 - file -o file

When you use the command line:

Code:

sort -k2 file > file

the shell sees the redirection (> file) and creates a file named file (destroying any contents that may have existed in that file) and then starts the sort utility. The sort utility will then open the file named as a command-line argument (in this case also named file which, after the shell has redirected the output, is now an empty file).