Using pipe symbol and "print" in Windows - shell

I am trying to make a shell script work in Windows. Sorry but I'm not very experienced in Windows (or even that much in shell to be honest). The script works well except for this one line:
print "9\n0\n1\n5\n0\n0\n\n" | /usr/ts23/mm_util
The mm_util is an interactive utility that takes numbers as input. It chooses selection 9 first, then 0, then 1, etc. I've changed the path to use the utility, which has an identical interface in Windows but the output is just the first screen. The "9" input isn't entered, and because of this the output (that is parsed) is incorrect. How can I change this so that the "9" is entered on the first screen?

Here is a method that does not require a file. It works on the command line:
(for %N in (9 0 1 5 0 0 "") do #echo(%~N)|c:\Users\ts23\mm_util
The "" is to get an empty line in the output, as you had in your original question. Your answer does not have the blank line.
The %~N notation strips enclosing quotes from the value.
The echo( is non-intuitive syntax that can reliably print a blank line, in case %~N expands to nothing.
Don't forget to double the percents if you put the code in a batch script.

Try to put that nine-linebreak-zero-stuff in a text file, and then execute print textfile.txt | /usr/ts23/mm_util
And bear in mind that Windows uses the pre-UNIX convention that the linebreak is CR LF, not just LF.

The way I got the output I wanted was by using this:
C:\Users\ts23\mm_util < test.txt
And then just put the following inside test.txt
9
0
1
5
0
0
The output I got was what I needed, hopefully this will help someone trying to do something like this in the future.

Related

Bash script sourcing config file but can't use vars in arithmetic

This is killing me. I have a config file, "myconfig.cfg", with the following content:
SOME_VAR=2
echo "I LOVE THIS"
Then I have a script that I'm trying to run, that sources the config file in order to use the settings in there as variables. I can print them out fine, but when I try to put one into a numeric variable for use in something like a "seq " command, I get this weird "invalid arithmetic operator" error.
Here's the script:
#!/bin/bash
source ./myconfig.cfg
echo "SOME_VAR=${SOME_VAR}"
let someVarNum=${SOME_VAR}
echo "someVarNum=${someVarNum}"
And here's the output:
I LOVE THIS
SOME_VAR=2
")syntax error: invalid arithmetic operator (error token is "
someVarNum=
I've tried countless things that theoretically shouldn't make a difference, and, surprise, they don't. I simply can't figure it out. If I simply take the line "SOME_VAR=2" and put it directly into the script, everything's fine. I'm guessing I'll have to read in the config file line by line, split the strings by "=", and find+create the variables I want to use manually.
The error is precisely as indicated in a comment by #TomFenech. The first line (and possibly all the lines) in myconfig.cfg is terminated with a Windows CR-LF line ending. Bash considers CR to be an ordinary character (not whitespace), so it will set SOME_VAR to the two character string 2CR. (CR is the character with hex code 0x0D. You could see that if you display the file with a hex-dumper: hd myconfig.cfg.)
The let command performs arithmetic on numbers. It also considers the CR to be an ordinary character, but it is neither a digit nor an operator so it complains. Unfortunately, it does not make any attempt to sanitize the display of the character in the error message, so the carriage return is displayed between the two " symbols. Consequently, the end of the error message overwrites the beginning.
Don't create Unix files with a Windows text editor. Or use a utility like dos2unix to fix them once you copy them to the Unix machine.

Assign BASH variable from file with specific criteria

A config file that the last line contains data that I want to assign everything to the RIGHT of the = sign into a variable that I can display and call later in the script.
Example: /path/to/magic.conf:
foo
bar
ThisOption=foo.bar.address:location.555
What would be the best method in a bash shell script to read the last line of the file and assign everything to the right of the equal sign? In this case, foo.bar.address:location.555.
The last line always has what I want to target and there will only ever be a single = sign in the file that happens to be the last line.
Google and searching here yielded many close but non-relative results with using sed/awk but I couldn't come up with exactly what I'm looking for.
Use sed:
variable=$(sed -n 's/^ThisOption=//p' /path/to/magic.conf)
echo "The option is: $variable")
This works by finding and removing the ThisOption= marker at the start of the line, and printing the result.
IMPORTANT: This method absolutely requires that the file be trusted 100%. As mentioned in the comments, anytime you "eval" code without any sanitization there are grave risks (a la "rm -rf /" magnitude - don't run that...)
Pure, simple bash. (well...using the tail utility :-) )
The advantage of this method, is that it only requires you to know that it will be the last line of the file, it does not require you to know any information about that line (such as what the variable to the left of the = sign will be - information that you'd need in order to use the sed option)
assignment_line=$(tail -n 1 /path/to/magic.conf)
eval ${assignment_line}
var_name=${assignment_line%%=*}
var_to_give_that_value=${!var_name}
Of course, if the var that you want to have the value is the one that is listed on the left side of the "=" in the file then you can skip the last assignment and just use "${!var_name}" wherever you need it.

Comparing/finding the difference between two text files using findstr

I have a requirement to compare two text files and to find out the difference between them. Basically I have an input file (input.txt) which will be processed by a batch job and my batch will log the output (successful.txt) where the job has successfully ran.
In simple words, I need to find out the difference between input.txt and successful.txt (input.txt-successful.txt) and I was thinking to use findstr. It seems to be fine, BUT I don't understand one part of it. It always includes the last line of my input.txt in the output. You could see that in the example below. Please note that there is no leading space or line break after the last line of my input.txt.
In below example, you could see the line server1,db1 is present on both the files, but still listed in the output. (It is always the last line of input.txt)
D:\Scripts\dummy>type input.txt
server2,db2
server3,db3
server10,db10
server4,db4
server1,db11
server10,schema11
host1,sch2
host11,sql2
host11,sql3
server1,db1
D:\Scripts\dummy>type successful.txt
server1,db1
server2,db2
server3,db3
server4,db4
server10,db10
host1,sch2
host11,sql2
host11,sql3
D:\Scripts\dummy>findstr /vixg:successful.txt input.txt
server1,db11
server10,schema11
server1,db1
What am I doing wrong?
Cheers,
G
I could reproduce your results by removing the newline after the last line of input.txt, so solution 1 would be to add a newline to the end of input.txt. Since you appear to say that input.txt has no terminal newline, then adding one would cure the problem; findstr is acting as expected because it acts on newline-terminated lines.
Solution 2 would be
type input.txt|findstr /vixg:successful.txt

Echo misses ^ characters when long string

I have the following command in a windows batch script
echo =%%k-16,INDIRECT.EXT^("'C:\Users\...\Analysis\[ObsStreamflow.xlsx]Sheet1'^!A%%k"^),INDIRECT.EXT^("'C:\Users\...\Analysis\[sim%%j.xlsx]Sheet1'^!B!val!"^),^=C%%k/1000,^=D%%k-B%%k,^=ABS^(E%%k^),^=(E%%k^)^^2,=^(B%%k-B10^),=Sqrt^(B%%k^),=SQRT^(D%%k^),=^(J%%k - B13^)^^2 >>t%%j.csv
where the omitted file path is 38 characters long (I don't think I'm hitting the line limits, but just in case this is the problem). This is a single line in my .bat file, shown here as multiple lines just to make things more readable.
The output is mostly correct, except that where I have ^^2, it just becomes 2 (so I have =(E1)2 and =(J1-B13)2. If I omit the Indirect.Ext text, and just have
echo =%%k-16,a1,b1,^=C%%k/1000,^=D%%k-B%%k,^=ABS^(E%%k^),^=(E%%k^)^^2,=^(B%%k-B10^),=Sqrt^(B%%k^),=SQRT^(D%%k^),=^(J%%k - B13^)^^2 >>t%%j.csv
it prints correctly, so the relevant comments show as =(E1)^2 and =(J1-B13)^2, which is what I am after.
I've not had any luck finding an answer, everything I have found just points to using ^^ to get echo to return ^. I cannot break this command into multiple lines, I need it to be a single row in csv format.
Any suggestions for a fix much appreciated, I only really need to use this for a week or so, don't need an elegant solution, just one that works. - I'm very new to bat scripts (and indeed programming in general), will keep trying different ideas in the mean time.
It's only the exclamation mark that creates the problems for you.
If at least one ! is in your line (and delayed expansion is enabled), then a second caret escape phase will be started.
In this phase quotes aren't regarded, only carets.
A small test
setlocal EnableDelayedExpansion
echo one^1
echo two^^2
echo two^^2 With exclam!
echo five^^^^^& With exclam!
Output
one1
two^2
two2 With exclam
four^& With exclam
So in your sample, you need five carets.
Four to create one caret and the last one to escape the ), as the escape of the special character is only once required.
Not sure what your specific problem is but you can use a trick in Windows to emulate echo -n (echo without a newline).
The commands:
<nul: >file.csv set /p junk=first field
<nul: >>file.csv set /p junk=,second field
>>file.csv echo ,third field
will result in a single line:
first field,second field,third field
That may make it easier for you to avoid the specific problem and, as a bonus, clean up your script so it's a little more readable (such as one field per script line).
It works because set /p var=prompt is the input command. It first outputs prompt without a newline then waits for the user to enter something, assigning it to the var environment variable.
By getting input from nul:, you basically give it an empty string so it doesn't wait. The prompt is output to file.csv without the newline.
In any case, for something this complex, I'd be bypassing cmd.exe for something a little more powerful such as the UNIX text processing tools under CygWin or MinGW (which require installation but are well worth it), or even VBScript scripts (which should be on Windows by default), where you can more easily control the output.

What changes when a file is saved in Kedit for windows that the unix2dos command doesn't do?

So I have a strange question. I have written a script that re-formats data files. I basically create new files with the right column order, spacing, and such. I then unix2dos these files (the program I am formatting these files for is DIPS for windows, and I assume that the files should be ansi). When I go to open the files in the DIPS Program however an error occurs and the file won't open.
When I create the same kind of data file through the DIPS program and open it in note pad, it matches exactly with the data files I have created with my script.
On the other hand if I open the data files that I have created with my script in Kedit first, save them, and then open them in the DIPS program everything works.
My question is what could saving in Kedit possibly do that unix2dos does not?
(Also if I try using note pad or word pad to save instead of Kedit the file doesn't open in DIPS)
Here is what was created using the diff command in unix
"
1,16c1,16
* This file is generated by Dips for Windows.
* The following 2 lines are the Title of this file.
Cobre Panama
Drill Hole B11106-GT
Number of Traverses: 0
Global Orientation is:
DIP/DIPDIRECTION
0.000000 (Declination)
NO QUANTITY
Number of extra columns are: 0
--
* This file is generated by Dips for Windows.
* The following 2 lines are the Title of this file.
Cobre Panama
Drill Hole B11106-GT
Number of Traverses: 0
Global Orientation is:
DIP/DIPDIRECTION
0.000000 (Declination)
NO QUANTITY
Number of extra columns are: 0
18c18
--
440c440
--
442c442
-1
-1
"
Any help would be appreciated! Thanks!
Okay! Figured it out.
Simply when you unix2dos your file you do not strip any space characters in between the last letter in a line and the line break character. When saving in Kedit you do strip the spaces between the last letter in a line and the line break character.
In my script I had a poor programing practice in which I was writing a string like this;
echo "This is an example string " >> outfile.txt
The character count is 32, and if you could see the break line character (chr(10)) the line would read;
This is an example string
If you unix2dos outfile.txt the line looks the same as above but with a different break line character. However when you place the file into Kedit and save it, now the character count is 25 and the line looks like this;
This is an example string
This occurs because Kedit does not preserve spaces at the end of a line. It places the return or line break character at the last letter or "non space" character in a line.
So programs that read literal input like DIPS (i'm guessing) or more widely used AutoCAD scripting will have a real problem with extra spaces before the return character. Basically in AutoCAD scripting a space in a line is treated as a return character. So if you have ten extra spaces at the end of a line it's treated the same as ten returns instead of the one you probably intended.
OH and if this helped you out or though it was good please give me a vote up!
unix2dos converts the line-break characters at the end of each line, from unix line breaks (10) to dos line breaks (13, 10)
Kedit could possible change the encoding of the file (like from ansi to UTF-8)
You can change the encoding of a file with the iconv utility (on a linux box)

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