Bash Script String Splitting

MurrayL · 09-21-2004, 03:05 AM

Hi.
I am trying to write a bash script that reads usefull information from the /etc/passwd file

at the moment I've got

for user in $( cat /etc/passwd )
do
...
done

inside the loop I would like to split $user = "username:uid:etc:etc" into $username, $uid., $gid, $etc...

Any suggestions?

Many Thanks
Murray

theYinYeti · 09-21-2004, 03:20 AM

Here's my solution:

Code:

cat /etc/passwd | while IFS=: read Name UnusedByNT Uid Gid RealName HomePath ShellPath; do
    echo "name:$Name uid:$Uid gid:$Gid home:$HomePath shell:$ShellPath"
done

Note, however, that this example is based on the Cygwin passwd file, which is slightly different from that of Unix/Linux. Just adapt.

Yves.