UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

1) cut command is missing a dash (need -c5-7)

2) You need to cut -c8-10

3) There might be an easy way to get the numerical value, but I will submit the following code in its stead:

ls -ld filename |
cut -c2-10 |
tr [-rwx] [0421] |
sed "s/./& /g" |
awk '{print $1+$2+$3 $4+$5+$6 $7+$8+$9}'

The tr converts rwx- to digits, then sed puts spaces between each of the digits so that awk can process them as individual fields.

Outputs 3 digits, such as 700 or 755.

Sorry mate, tried it a few times but doesnt seem to work, may be im doing something wrong??


This is what i exactly input:

Numeric () {
print -n "Enter file name: "
read name
if [ -f $name ]
then
ls -ld $name | cut -c2-10 | tr [-rwx] [0421] | sed "s/./& /g" | awk '{print $1+$2+$3 $4+$5+$6 $7+$8+$9}'
else
echo "This is not a file"
fi
}

Its says tr: Bad string

Can u see anything im doing wrong?

I copy/pasted your Numeric routine, and it worked for me in sh, ksh, csh on HP-UX 11.00. The man page for tr says:

"If necessary, string1 and string2 can be quoted to avoid pattern matching by the shell."

Try single quotes around the tr arguments. I put single quotes, and it continues to work for me:

tr '[-rwx]' '[0421]'

Still don't work, can anyone see what im doing wrong or suggest any other alternative solutions?

Im working in ksh environment, using vi editor

Just curious if you can run these commands:

echo rwx | tr [rwx] [421]
echo rw- | tr [-rwx] [0421]

The first should print 421 and the second should print 420.

echo rwx | tr [rwx] [421]
Says: "tr: Range endpoints out of order."

echo rw- | tr [-rwx] [0421]
says: "tr: Bad string."

Sorry for the trial and error, but if you change the tr command to one of the following, I'm pretty sure it will work for you:

tr ["\-rwx"] ["0421"]

tr ["rwx\-"] ["4210"]