Variable problem with sed

[atterl]

Hi!

I have a problem that seemes to be quite easy but I could not solve.

How can I put the result of the following expression in a variable (that will be a file name in any case) in a c shell script?

sed -n "$i{p;q;}" outputs.txt

I could write it on the screen or in an another file but I would need it in a variable.

Thanks in advance

[Dustspeck]

use parentheses, which must be escaped, to use variables. Then, put them into your result using escaped numbers.

for example, to convert all .com domains in a stream to .net, you might use
"s/\(.*\).com/\1.net/"

[chebarbudo]

Hi atterl,
Try one of the following:

a=$(sed -n "$i{p;q;}" outputs.txt)
a=`sed -n "$i{p;q;}" outputs.txt`

Santiago

[drl]

Hi.

... in a c shell script

Along with the standard advice to avoid csh for scripting if at all possible, you can use part of the suggestion from chebarbudo to solve your problem:

set a = `sed -n "$i{p;q;}" outputs.txt`

The quotes are the special backquotes [`] often found on the same key as the tilde [~].

I use tcsh for interactive work, but the Bourne shell family (sh, bash, ksh, zsh) for scripting. For reasons, see Csh Programming Considered Harmful

Best wishes ... cheers, drl

[atterl]

Thank you for your help.

I tried to use parentheses and ` too, but I get the expression in the variable with or without the "s and not the result. I also tried to redirect the result into $a with a > or a | but I got an empty variable or an error. The expression a=$(sed -n "$i{p;q;}" outputs.txt) also gives an error both with and without set.

I gave up using sed and c shell, although the latter one would have been better for the problem because the files I must hadle are genereted by a software running in c shell.

Anyway I solved the problem in b shell as follows:

#!/bin/bash

while read line
do
  echo $line
  ...
  other scripts for data manipulation I needed
  ...
done < outputs.txt