Shell Programming and Scripting

Hi,
In my Scripts,i need to read record from a file and after reading I need to delete that record,as I need to run the script in a loop for no of records in file.( I am using While-do command for that).But my problem is while deleting record using command"`cat ${TEST_FILE}|sed '$d' > ${TEST_FILE}`",first time it is deleting record properly but in second reu(in while loop),it is deleting all records at same time.
Please suggest some solution.
Thanks in advance

Hi,
In my Scripts,i need to read record from a file and after reading I need to delete that record,as I need to run the script in a loop for no of records in file.( I am using While-do command for that).But my problem is while deleting record using command"`cat ${TEST_FILE}|sed '$d' > ${TEST_FILE}`",first time it is deleting record properly but in second reu(in while loop),it is deleting all records at same time.
Please suggest some solution.
Thanks in advance

Code:

sed '$d' ${TEST_FILE} > ${TEST_FILE}.new && mv ${TEST_FILE}.new ${TEST_FILE}

Cheers
ZB

I think my qrery is doing same this,insted of writing output (after deletion of record from file) to new file and then moving the new file again into same (original file) I am over writing writing in the same file.

Yes, that's your problem. Unless you're using GNU sed (with the -i option) don't do things this way or you'll clobber your original file.

Thanks .