UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hello everyone !

Ive searched everywhere and still havnt found enough information to help me overcome (what seems like) a small problem

I have created a temporary file in which i store numbers which a seperated by a space, eg)

Code:

5 10 46
23 866 392

i wish to take the numbers for each line and add them together to find the sum for each line.

I am confused at how to specify the numbers too add ie) if i do this:
while read line
do
m=0
sum=0
while (( m++ < ${#line} ))
do
num=$(expr substr "$line" $m 1)
(( sum=sum+num))
done
echo $sum
done < fileNums

But this looks at each character, where as i want to look at each field seperated by a space.

I realise this can be specified using cut, with a deliminator to seperate each field - but I dont know how to iterate through each field in a line, especially since I dont know how many fields will be in each line.

Im using bash, and am trying to do this without using awk or sed. Using expr is the way I want to go.
Any help would be appreciated! I have been stuck for days!! Thank you.

Why wouldn't you want to use awk or sed? And if you would use one of these tools how would the solution look like?

Sorry, but this sounds like homework, which is forbidden by the rules.

If it is not homework (and the awk&sed-restriction is simply because it was said so) please tell us more about the task and why you wouldn't want to use awk or sed.

Even if its homework i would be willing to give some leeway in this and help you with a hint (certainly not a solution), but to be eligible you will have to answer the second question, how would you solve it with awk or sed.

bakunin

Substitute the space(s) with the + symbol, and do an expr on it ...

Got it ?