BASH + Best method of converting fields to variables

[Aaron Gaudio]

Behold, Ow Mun Heng <Ow.Mun.Heng at wdc.com> hath decreed:
> Guys,
> 
> 	Writing a batch_create_new_user script.
> input is a file with this format
> 
> Username:Full Name:Default Group:Default Shell:Home Directory:Password
>  
> and the using those fields ($1 $2 $3 etc) and passing then to the useradd program
> 
> I'm having some trouble getting bash to get the positional fields into variables which I
> can then plug into useradd
> 
> eg:
> pseudo code
> for each line in input file
>   do
> 	username=$1
> 	name=$2
> 	useradd -c "$2" $1
>   done
> 
> I ended up using awk, which works but seems complicated
> 
> 	eval `awk -F ':' \
>         '{printf ("useradd -c \"%s\" ",$2)}; \
>         length($3)>0 {printf ("-g %s ",$3)}; \
>         length($4)>0 {printf ("-s %s ",$4)}; \
>         length($5)>0 {printf ("-d %s ",$5)}; \
>         {printf ("%s\n;",$1)};' $1`
> 
> Can it be done using bash itself? (without calling awk)
> Actually I was hoping I can get awk to get the fields for the variables

You could try this:

read -d: USERNAME
read -d: NAME
read -d: GROUP

etc..

Keep in mind that when using -d, read will not treat a newline
as a delimiter, so you have to use more trickery if you want
optional fields.
> > psuedo code
> username = awk -F: {'print $1}'
> name = awk -F: {'print $2}'
> 
> Any takers??
> 
> BTW, what's the best way to check the number of fields in the input file?
> I was thinkning of counting how many ":" there are in each line. But can't
> figure out how to actually _do_ it.
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Ow Mun Heng
> Fedora GNU/Linux Core 2 on D600 1.4Ghz CPU kernel
> 2.6.7-2.jul1-interactive 
> Neuromancer 17:13:44 up 5:56, 10 users, load average: 1.65, 1.32, 0.97 
> 
> 
> -- 
> fedora-list mailing list
> fedora-list at redhat.com
> To unsubscribe: http://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list

-- 

prothonotar at tarnation.dyndns.org
"Every man is a mob, a chain gang of idiots." 
                           - Jonathan Nolan, /Memento Mori/
  
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 197 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.fedoraproject.org/pipermail/users/attachments/20040716/c441572b/attachment-0002.bin