UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

I have a strange problem and i am wondering the best way to tackel it.

i have hundres of files. in each of these files i would like to see a representative of each of my animals at the start of each line, in this case
mouse, cat, dog, pig, rabbit, in this exact order.

However not all of my files contain representatives of each animal.

If i have a file that contains

>dog;ATGCATGCATTTA
>rabbit;CTANNNAAAAAAA

I would like to be able to substitute the other animals except place them in my order of preference, so i would like my end file to look like this

>mouse;-----
>cat;-----
>dog;ATGCATGCATTTA
>pig;-----
>rabbit;CTANNNAAAAAAA

this is a short snipit of who i was thinking of tackling the problem like this

Code:

if grep '>mouse' FILEIN
   then 
       print
   else
        sed '1i\
>mouse;-----' FILEIN > FILEOUT_1
fi
if grep '>cat' FILEOUT_1
   then 
       print
   else
       sed '/>mouse/ a\
>cat;----' FILEOUT_1 > FILEOUT2
fi

Now as you can see that is an absolutely horrible piece of code, which does everything but actually do what i would like it too.

If any one can lend advice here it would be hugely appreciated.

You were on the right way!
Does your sed support the -i option (the so-called in-place editing)?

Code:

$ cat testfile
>dog;ATGCATGCATTTA
>rabbit;CTANNNAAAAAAA
$ 
$ ./checktest.sh
>dog;ATGCATGCATTTA
>rabbit;CTANNNAAAAAAA
$ 
$ cat testfile
>mouse;-----
>cat;-----
>dog;ATGCATGCATTTA
>pig;-----
>rabbit;CTANNNAAAAAAA
$

checktest.sh

Code:

#!/bin/sh

if ! grep '>mouse' testfile
   then 
        sed -ie '1i\
>mouse;-----\
' testfile
fi

if ! grep '>cat' testfile
   then
        sed -ie '2i\
>cat;-----\
' testfile
fi

if ! grep '>dog' testfile
   then
        sed -ie '3i\
>dog;-----\
' testfile
fi

if ! grep '>pig' testfile
   then
        sed -ie '4i\
>pig;-----\
' testfile
fi

if ! grep '>rabbit' testfile
   then
        sed -ie '5i\
>rabbit;-----\
' testfile
fi

Hope this is what you wanted to achieve...

Thanks so much, that worked like a dream!