find and cp not working

[maya_pillai]

Hi,

The below script takes a date and table name from the user. It unzips and untar a file from archive folder based on date. Then select the required file based on the tablename provided and copy it to ../posextract folder.The folder posextract contains already extracted files for the user.

echo "Enter date \n" 
read lookdate 
echo "Enter Table Name\n" 
read tablename 
cd $POS_ARC 
find . -name *$lookdate* -exec cp {} ../postempextract \; 
cd ../postempextract 
gunzip * | tar -xvf - 
find . -name *$tablename* -exec cp {} ../posextract \; 
rm *

1) The find command throws error with *. However when I try without *, it is not finding the required files.

2)Can we modify the above script to avoid the use of ../postempextract here?

Thanks
Maya

[theNbomr]

When you use wildcards in an argument to a program, you must prevent those wildcards from being expanded by the shell. To do so, enclose them in either single quotes or double quotes. In your case, you need double quotes, to allow interpolation of the enclosed variable.

find . -name "*$lookdate*" -exec cp {} ../postempextract \;

--- rod.

[theNbomr]

I just saw the second part of your question...

To solve the problem of temporary files, instead use variables that contain filenames, and use grep to filter those...

for file in $(echo $(find . -name "*$lookdate*" ) | grep $tablename); do
   cp $file ../posextract
done

--- rod.