UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hello everyone,

I am struggling a bit with a batch script that I need to run in cygwin. I work in winXP and I had to write some awk scripts to do some file manipulation, and now I would like to automate the process by just running a batch file so that my colleagues can use it easily.

Now, the bat file is running almost fine, I only have a problem with the read command...
The problem I have is when trying to run this:

Code:

bash -c -i 'read version' 
bash -c -i 'awk -f Script.awk temp.txt '/address/to/desired/directory/$version > temp2.txt ' '

When I run this batch, everything is running ok, it prompts me for "version", but when coming to the next line, it's like it forgot what "version" was. When I type it line by line in cygwin, it remembers it ok, but not here

Does anyone know why and how to fix this?
I am not a good linux user, to be honest, I suck at it, but I still searched before going here and can't find a solution. It might be stupid, be I tried with

Code:

bash -c -i 'read version & awk -f SecondStep.awk temp.txt  /cygdrive/c/Tools/ETAS/Ascet5.2/Cgen/$version > \
temp2.txt''

or with

Code:

bash -c -i 'read version | awk -f SecondStep.awk temp.txt  /cygdrive/c/Tools/ETAS/Ascet5.2/Cgen/$version > \
temp2.txt''

but this runs the whole line at once, prompting me after to type "version" and not running the awk script


thank you very much for your help.
Teroc.

Windows environment != Cygwin environment
The variable you read in the first line is set only within that bash process, and is lost as soon as it exits (which is immediately afterwards)
You can put multiple independent statements on the same line by separating them with a semicolon, OR you could go the smart way, and put all needed statements into a script which you then call.

Ah I didn't know about the semicolon thing (yes I suck), but I should have thought about the script thing. I did a script.sh equivalent to the batch file and it works perfectly fine, but I didn't think about including one in the batch !

Thank you for the advice!