Newbie Bash Multiple Entry problem

[ChesterCobblepot]

Hello,

I've just started using bash and have a really simple problem, I've tried searching but I'm not sure what the problem is called

I've wrote a simple script that essentially takes input in from a line using read -e and then performs an action, the action is just to take information from one place.. say 10,000 files, then cut it into sections and copy elsewhere

I've done this, but I want to enter multiple sections, I might want 3 or 4 sections from the source data

Simply put I don't want to have to enter the command when the action has finished

i.e currently

enter data in line of what I want and where to put it
action performed

what I want is to..

enter data in line
enter different data in line
enter different data in line

action performed
action performed
action performed

Thanks for your help

[atreyu]

not sure I understand, do you mean this?

read -p "Enter action 1: " action1
read -p "Enter action 2: " action2
read -p "Enter action 3: " action3
echo "action 1: $action1"
echo "action 2: $action2"
echo "action 3: $action3"

[ChesterCobblepot]

Hi,

Exactly that, but with perhaps 100 inputs. Its a messy script I intend to clean when its working.
So as it stands the script takes a sequence of about 20,000 photos chooses a selection from them, renames and outputs

However I have to enter the selections destination, start and end frame - then it processes the request, then I enter another selection

I want to be able to enter a long list of shots I want, then for them all to be processed so I can just set it off and leave it

[atreyu]

Maybe you want command line arguments then? I'm not sure what you are requiring as input, but maybe something like:

#!/bin/bash
declare -a args
args=($@)
num=${#args[*]}
echo "You gave $num args"
echo "arg 1 is ${args[0]}"
echo "arg 2 is ${args[1]}"
echo "arg 3 is ${args[2]}"

Then you'd pass all your inputs on the command line, when you run the script.e.g.:

./myscript.sh arg1 arg2 blah "variable with spaces" 20 foo bar arg8

[ChesterCobblepot]

Thanks, I'll give that go

[ChesterCobblepot]

Thanks to the help above I got the scripts working, so now I'm just fine tuning. I've been looking around at sed/awk etc but I can't work out the following problem. All i want is for a user to enter timecode into a user line in the format of 01:04:05:05 etc and the line to be broken up. So far I'm working the min, sec and frame separately so they are entered as 4 5 5 and given anchors using read -e

i.e.
read -e startmin startsec startframe
start=$[startmin * 24 * 60 + startsec * 24 + startframe - handles]

How do I translate that so that the input data is separated by a colon, is it as simple as telling read how to process it or do I need to format the information after it's been put in? Essentially

read -e ignore:startmin:startsec:startframe

Sorry for the questions, I'm finding half the trouble being that I don't know how to go about the for mating the instructions so googleing rarely helps

[atreyu]

something like this?

read -p "Enter timecode (e.g. 01:04:05:05): " input
declare -a args
if [ -n "$input" ]; then
  args=($(echo $input|sed -e 's|:| |g'))
  echo "args given: ${args[*]}"
  if [ ${#args[*]} -ne 4 ]; then
    echo "Wrong number of args"
    exit 1
  else
    firstarg=${args[0]}
    secondarg=${args[1]}
    thirdarg=${args[2]}
    fourtharg=${args[3]}
  fi
else
  echo No args given
  exit 1
fi

echo first arg: $firstarg

You could wrap it in a loop so that it kept asking you until you give it the right format as input.

[ChesterCobblepot]

Exactly like that, Thankyou so much

[ChesterCobblepot]

Hello,

Thanks for all your help so far with. I've another 2 simple Friday morning questions though if someone could explain to me, or at least nudge me in the right direction as to what i should be looking at

I've a command that looks for the earliest numbered dpx frame and reads the timecode embedded in the dpxheader. I use a separate programme to find all the results then grep to find the line I'm interested in, which I want to store as input. so far I have...

read -p "Enter path :" path
dpxreader $path.*.dpx -ge 0 | grep "timecode*"

So the path is entered, the programme finds the earliest file when it is not starting at 0 or 1, reads the header and prints the timecode information. What I want to do is

First, The path to be more flexible, so it will always end with the .dpx files and will overlook any other sub directories that are put in (i.e. roll it came from/geometry folder/another random folder/fsdfdsf.dpx essentially all you need is a name and it will overlook all subs within that folder until it reaches the final dpx file

Second, This must be simple, but how do I store the grep readout as input? Currently I have to print it then enter it separately, I'm sure there must be a way to store the grep found line's timecode information I jyst can't seem to google what it is

Thanks again for all your patience and help with this

[atreyu]

I don't understand what you mean by the path needing to be more flexible. When you prompt the user for input, what do you want them to respond with? a file, or a directory, or a bunch of files, or what?

It looks as though the dpxreader takes as command line arguments any files ending in dpx in the path specified.

I don't quite get this code:

dpxreader $path.*.dpx -ge 0 | grep "timecode*"

is the -ge 0 bit actually arguments being passed to the program dpxreader or you utilizing the bash built-in numerical comparisons? If the latter, I think you need to rework it a bit. What does the output of dpxreader look like?

Is dpxreader a shell script, and if so, can you post relevant portions of it?

Save the output of grep like:

output=$(dpxreader $path.*.dpx -ge 0 | grep "timecode*")