UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Need some help.

I need to load data into some Oracle tables and one of the pieces of data that I need to load is the filename. This filename is distinct every single time. Basically the last 6 characters will be different with no pattern.

ex. testfile_041504_003567

To load the filename into Oracle I thought about using awk to place the filename before every record in the file and then I can load it based on the position. This portion works ok, but I'm stuck with the hard part.

awk ' {print FILENAME,$0} ' filename> filename.dat

I tested this process manually, by typing in the filename so that AWK could utilize the print feature. I want to automate this thing, but the distinct filename has stumped me.

How can I feed the filename to awk as a variable?

I will have numerous files I need to load on a daily basis, so it will need to loop through all of the files?

Sorry for the long post. Appreciate all and any help.

Here is a pretty good AWK Tutorial. I have had good luck with it anyway.

As for your question, to pass a variable into Awk, try using the -v switch.

awk -v FILE=$FILE_NAME '{print FILE, $0}'

You can get all of the filenames into single file using the following command sequence. Assuming the directory only has the list of files in it, no other sub directories.

Code:

DIRECTORY=/some/directory
FILE_NAME="my-file-list"

for i in `ls -1 $DIRECTORY`
 do 
   echo $i >> $FILE_NAME
done

Thanks google.

I don't want to put all of the files into the same file though. I'm using the initial awk command to place the filename as the first couple characters of every row. If I place all the files into one file I will lose the original filename. Right?

The second piece looks good because it looks like you are listing all of the files in the directory. How does awk know to grab each file and then output the results via the print command?

In awk the FILENAME varable is built-in, i.e. you don't need to define it.

Try this....

awk '{print FILENAME, $0 > FILENAME ".dat"}' file*

Thanks so much, this worked like a charm