UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

If I have correctly understood this discussion, the current solution you're using is the following script:

Code:

list=`ls`
awk -F: '{for(i=2;i<=NF;i++) {printf $i"\n"}}' readme > matchfile
for f in $list
do
  grep -q $f matchfile
  if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
    echo 'found match......' $f
  fi
done

Unfortunately, this script can yield false positives (i.e., report that a match has been found when the supposed match is not named in the file readme). This will happen whenever a file exists that consists entirely of one or more of the characters in the filenames you're trying to match in the same sequence as they appear in one or more of the desired files' names. It will also happen if a filename contains any whitespace characters and one or more of the whitespace separated sequences in those filenames match a sequence of one or more characters in any of the desired files' names.

In the sample data provided, you're looking for index.html, file1.1, file2.1, and file3.1. As an example of the problem, create a file named x l where the character between the "x" and the "l" is a space or a tab. Then run the script above. It will report that it found two matches (x and l) even though neither of those files exist and neither of those names are included in the file readme. (The "x" matches index.html and the "l" matches the last character in index.html and the 3rd character in file1.1, file2.1, and file3.1.)

I also saw that I had misread your requirements in the earlier suggestion I had supplied for you in message #3 in this thread. Here is a corrected version that I believe does what you want with no chance of reporting false positives:

Code:

sed '/^[^:]*:/s///;s/:/\
/g' readme | while IFS="" read -r f
do	if [ -f "$f" ]
	then	printf "\"%s\" is a regular file.\n" "$f"
	else	printf "\"%s\" is not a regular file.\n" "$f"
	fi
done

It will just provide a list of the files that are named in readme and report whether or not they exist as regular files in the current directory.

Hope this helps,
Don