Shell Programming and Scripting

I used your suggestion, but doesnt work:

echo "Enter username to change home directory:";
read username;
echo "Enter new home directory path:";
read new_path;

awk -v user=$username -v path=$new_path 'BEGIN{FS=OFS=":"}$1==user{$6=$new_path}1' /etc/passwd;;

Watch for typo and use a temp file to make the changes permanent.

it again doent work

Maybe if you can tell what shell are you scripting for?

Code:

echo $SHELL

and what part of your script is not working (Please post your script (copy/paste) and use the [code] tag's.), maybe we can help you.

danmero means 'doesn't work' is meaningless when it comes to getting it to work.

echo "Enter username to change home directory:";
read username;
echo "Enter new home directory path:";
read new_path;

awk -v user="$username" -v path="$new_path" 'BEGIN{FS=OFS=":"}$1==user{$6=$new_path}1' /etc/passwd;;


After I run above script, the home directory for the entered user doesnt change.
and also when I run the script entire /etc/passwd file is displayed.

The result of the echo $SHELL is:
/bin/bash

awk don't edit files "in place", use a temporary file:

Code:

#!bin/sh

echo -n "Enter username to change home directory: "
read username

echo -n "Enter new home directory path: "
read new_path

awk -v user="$username" -v path="$new_path" 'BEGIN{FS=OFS=":"}$1==user{$6=new_path}1' /etc/passwd > temp_file
mv temp_file /etc/passwd

You must have root permissions to run this script.