Shell Programming and Scripting

I added a couple things in the middle of the program! (commented out one line; two new lines)

Code:

> cat conv_form
#! /bin/bash
#conv_form

ifile=file1
ofile=file9
rm $ofile 2>/dev/null
first=0

while read zf
   do
   fourc=$(echo "$zf" | cut -c1-4)
   if [ $fourc -gt 1 ] 2>/dev/null
      then
#output prior data (if any) skipping first pass thru file
         if [ $first -gt 0 ]
            then
            echo "$hold_var">>$ofile
            echo " ">>$ofile
         fi
         first=1
#clear variables
#         hold_var=$(echo "$zf")
         h2=$(echo "$zf" | cut -c7-)
         hold_var=$(echo "$fourc""$h2")
      else
         hold_var=$(echo "$hold_var" "$zf")
   fi
done <$ifile
#output prior data (if any) from where fell out of loop
echo "$hold_var">>$ofile

Thanks a million, its working great!!!, could you please let me know why u used 2>/dev/null

redirects error output to "no where"
it is a common trick in programming unix

Why I used...
wanted to do a number comparison on a field
if number comparison was with a number, could do it
if numb comp was with text, it would error; so I "skip over" the error

Not very elegant, but gets the job done. In reality, I should have checked for $0 looking at return codes, blah blah....

Now that you have working code, you can make it nice and pretty!

Thank you again!!!

Hi, need a small change to the script, the output is perfect, change is

characters 1-4 should be a number - its perfect
characters 5-259 should be the remaining - its perfect
character 260 should be a new line

currently the length is not equal for all the lines, my request is to get the length of each line to 259 characters

1081WPCW 19 - CW/AM1, WPCB 40 - FAMN/CORNER, WPCB-DT1 50 - FAMN/CORNER, W35AW - Various Shopping Pgms W41CF - TBN W47CV - TBN WLLS-LP 49 - AM1 WATCH WPXI 11 N & WPIX 11 CW

1082WPCW 19 - CW/AM1, WTRF-DT2 32 - F/MY, WPCB 40 - FAMN/CORNER, WKBS-DT1 46 - FAMN/CORNER, WKBS 47 - FAMN/CORNER, WPCB-DT1 50 - FAMN/CORNER W45BT - FAMN/CORNER W47CV - TBN WLLS-LP 49 - AM1 WATCH WPXI 11 N & WPIX 11 CW WATCH WPGH 53 F & WWCP 08 F