UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi,

I am trying to perform a dos2unix conversion for a file. I am doing this in the FOR loop. Below is the command I am using in my script.
$FILE is the file the for loop is processing currently and I would like to convert $FILE and create a $FILE_I

This is not working.. it throws an error that it can't convert the $file and it is creating a dummyfile something like this d2utmpPuto7N and d2utmpaiOzz6 and writing it to that file instead of $FILE_I
should I create a $FILE_I file before executing this dos2unix command or a file called $FILE_I can't be created in the FOR loop??

I have to create such file as the file names, file numbers to be processed all are dynamic.

I also tried copying the $FILE to $FILE_I before dos2unix command but no luck, the error is $FILE and $FILE_I both are same cannot copy...

Can someone throw some light on what is missing?

Thanks!

Not sure what OS and/or shell you're using, but this worked for me:

Code:

for x in file*;do dos2unix -n $x ${x}_new;done
dos2unix: converting file file1 to file file1_new in UNIX format ...
dos2unix: converting file file2 to file file2_new in UNIX format ...
dos2unix: converting file file3 to file file3_new in UNIX format ...
dos2unix: converting file file4 to file file4_new in UNIX format ...
dos2unix: converting file file5 to file file5_new in UNIX format ...

It always helps to post what Operating System and version you have and what Shell you are using. We can't check your syntax.

Right $FILE and $FILE_I are valid names for two different environment variables.
If you want to append the suffix "_I" to whe filename you need to delimit the variable with curly brackets. It is good practice to do this anyway:

Code:

dos2unix -n ${WORK}/${FILE} ${WORK}/${FILE}_I

If this doesn't fix the issue I'd change the variable names $WORK and $FILE to something less generic in case your "dos2unix" program has some undocumented use of these variables (this sort of problem is more common than people believe).

thanks in2nix4life and methyl. curly bracket was the issue. I included it and it worked.