LinuxQuestions.org - Need help getting input from a file.

- Linux - Newbie (https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-newbie-8/)

- - Need help getting input from a file. (https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-newbie-8/need-help-getting-input-from-a-file-838958/)

Need help getting input from a file.

Hi everybody! I've been trying to figure this out for the past couple of days and I'm stumped...

I am trying to input from a file. The file's layout has three columns; a department number, a first name and a last name, each separated by a space, for example:

Code:

781-89-4271 Amy Balduff

839-98-4072 Brian Becker

846-43-4284 Christina Brendon

894-45-8694 Christine Cardosa-Ramirez

920-57-4251 Cindy Chen

469-55-6165 Corinna Deitz

466-54-3764 Cynth Dominguez

736-19-7345 Daniel Eversole

870-38-1858 David Flucker

539-71-2357 Dinno Gordillo

344-94-6979 Emily Hendrickson

532-37-4293 Gregory Herrera

916-86-6635 Heidi Hoang

614-90-6031 Hsu-Chia Houg

721-15-6603 Jack Jacobs

899-77-6019 Jamie Kim

671-12-5143 Jeffrey Koras

361-11-4712 Joseph Lewis

926-34-2055 Kurt Mananquil

885-66-4875 Leandra Martin

472-91-4771 Naomi Melick

663-25-1407 Omar Peralta

370-16-4687 Patricia Pesulima

207-82-3872 Robert Peters

743-92-4767 Rochelle Phang

962-92-4730 Salisha Salgado

587-95-1967 Savoeun Sanchez

758-12-8821 Shelley Siegel

479-65-3842 Stephanie Villarreal

644-86-6117 Thomas Williams

this is what I have so far:

Code:

#!/bin/bash

#

#adds user from a text format:



file=${1}



for i in $(cat $file);

do



      dept=$(echo $i | cut -d" " -f1)

      fname=$(echo $i | cut -d" " -f2)

      lname=$(echo $i | cut -d" " -f3)



      echo $fname $lname $dept

done

The output that I get is like this :

781-89-4271 781-89-4271 781-89-4271
Amy Amy Amy
Baldruff Baldruff Baldruff

instead of :
781-89-4271 Amy Baldruff

I need to input the words through separate variables because I will be passing them to other programs as soon as I can figure this out.

Any help??

Hi, welcome to LQ!

Can you post a bit of sample input via copy & paste?
And may I suggest that you use code-tags for both your
script & the data ...

Like [ code ] and [ /code ] , just w/o the spaces between
the brackets and code & /code respectively.

Cheers,
Tink

Okay, I re-posted it with the tags.

Ok, didn't see you edited your initial post
How's this?

Code:

#!/bin/bash

#

#adds user from a text format:



file=${1}



while read dept fname lname

do



  echo $fname $lname $dept

done < $file

Thank you! it works, and it's so much simpler.
One question though, what does the ' < $file ' part do on the last line?
Is it just part of the syntax of a while loop?

Quote:

Originally Posted by OrangeGrover (Post 4132092)

Thank you! it works, and it's so much simpler.
One question though, what does the ' < $file ' part do on the last line?
Is it just part of the syntax of a while loop?

Just telling bash to read from the file. And yes, it's
feeding the read in the while loop.

Cheers,
Tink

And for the record: to make your version work all it would have taken
was to introduce a new IFS ... I just thought the more elegant way
was preferable.

Code:

#!/bin/bash

#

#adds user from a text format:



file=${1}

IFS=$'\n'

for i in $(cat $file)

do

  dept=$(echo -n $i | cut -d" " -f1)

  fname=$(echo -n $i | cut -d" " -f2)

  lname=$(echo -n $i | cut -d" " -f3)



  echo $fname $lname $dept

done

Still quite verbose by comparison, but it works.

Cheers,
Tink