Bourne Scripting Question

**ldb88** · 02-17-2008

Using Bourne shell, is there an easy way to get the string in a specified field of output?

Something like this:

Code:

field 3 `ls -l $file`

to get the owner of $file.

Or

Code:

field 1 `cksum $file`

to get only the checksum of $file.

Or is there a safer way of getting the owner, cksum, and size of a file?

Thanks.

**wje_lf** · 02-17-2008

Enter this at the shell prompt:

Code:

man cut

and all will be revealed.

If you do not have man pages installed on your system, google this:

Code:

man cut linux

**ldb88** · 02-17-2008

Thank you!

**ghostdog74** · 02-18-2008

Code:

# a=`cksum file`
# set -- $a
# echo $1
445709364

**i92guboj** · 02-19-2008

Originally Posted by ldb88

Using Bourne shell, is there an easy way to get the string in a specified field of output?

Something like this:

Code:

field 3 `ls -l $file`

to get the owner of $file.

Or

Code:

field 1 `cksum $file`

to get only the checksum of $file.

Or is there a safer way of getting the owner, cksum, and size of a file?

Thanks.

The most similar thing to this that you wrote above, under my point of view, would be to use awk.

Code:

$ ls -l /etc/make.conf | awk '{ print $3 }'
root

I don't usually advice this though. And *nix has a command for this stuff anyway:

Code:

$ stat -c %U /etc/make.conf
root

An interesting man page to read, by the way.