insert character into a variable

jadeddog · 11-04-2008, 02:19 PM

heya all... i need to insert a backslash into an email address variable (to escape the @ symbol) that a user will provide

basically i have a script that asks the user for an email address for input, which i assign to a variable... lets say test@isp.com is what the user gives me... i need to insert a \ before the @ symbol so it reads test\@isp.com

i was figuring that awk would be the best way to do this, but i dont know how to pass a variable (instead of a file) to awk

any help would be appreciated

MensaWater · 11-04-2008, 02:34 PM

Try this:

Code:

#!/bin/bash
ADDR=$1
PARSEDADDR=`echo $ADDR |awk -F@ '{print $1"\\\@"$2}'`
echo PARSED is $PARSEDADDR

You need to escape the "\" with another "\" for awk to understand you literally mean "\@" rather than "escape @".

You then need to escape the first escape for the shell script to understand you're passing an escape to awk. (Fun isn't it?

)

Note the character before the echo and at end of that line is a back tick (same key as ~) while the character before and after the brackets on that line are single quote (same key as double quote).

jadeddog · 11-04-2008, 03:07 PM

this is my script file:

echo "Type the full email address:"
read input

addr=$1
parsedaddr=`echo $addr | awk -F@ '{print $1"\\\@"$2}'`
echo parsed is $parsedaddr

here is the output:

Type the full email address:
test@email.com
parsed is \@

so something isn't working (obviously)

MensaWater · 11-04-2008, 03:15 PM

change "addr=$1" to "addr=$input"

In the example I sent you I was assuming passing the email at invocation by typing:

script user@domain

In that the $1 would be the user@domain (first argument passed to script a/k/a first positional parameter).

Instead you are running:

script

In your script you are prompting user then using the "read" directive to assign his response to a variable named "input" so you have to use $input instead of $1.

jadeddog · 11-04-2008, 03:39 PM

thanks, that works... don't know why i didn't see that myself, pretty silly

thx again