UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi,

I have a file (details.txt) with 3 rows of variables ie...

name postcode age

john D fr25dd 25
mark W ab122aa 22
phil C cd343bb 33

What I want to do is read down the list with a loop and add each field into a one line piece of text...

So I have a file (test1) which reads;



my name is john D. I am 25 years old..... postcode is fr25dd
my name is mark W. I am 22 years old..... postcode is ab122aa
my name is phil C. I am 33 years old..... postcode is cd343bb



I don't know how to read more than one variable at a time, so I tried splitting the file, but it dies when trying to read the second variable $j ... What's the best way to do this?

Works with just the $i variable.

What I tried....
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
awk < details.txt '{print $1}' > name.test
awk < details.txt '{print $2}' > postcode.test
awk < details.txt '{print $3}' > age.test


for i in `cat name.test`
for j in `cat postcode.test`
for k in `cat age.text`

do

echo "my name is $i. I am $3 years old..... postcode is $2" > test1

done

rm name.test
rm postcode.test
rm age.test
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Code:

> cat file11
john D fr25dd 25
mark W ab122aa 22
phil C cd343bb 33
> awk '{print "My name is "$1" "$2". I am "$4" years old.... postcode is "$3}' <file11
My name is john D. I am 25 years old.... postcode is fr25dd
My name is mark W. I am 22 years old.... postcode is ab122aa
My name is phil C. I am 33 years old.... postcode is cd343bb

With bash:

Code:

while read -ra r; do
  printf "my name is %s, I'm %d years old, postcode is %s\n" \
  "${r[0]} ${r[1]}" "${r[3]}" "${r[2]}"
done<infile

Otherwise:

Code:

while read -r l f c a; do
  printf "my name is %s, I'm %d years old, postcode is %s\n" \
  "$l $f" "$a" "$c"
done<infile

Thanks for those answers - will probably use awk, but will take a look how the others work as well.