alright so i have to get rid of the comments in a file. They start with /* and end with */. Assuming that all of these are on a line of their own, i made a loop that goes through and detects them and avoids them. However, it prints extra characters on the first and last line. /TT_DB /UXB are printed on the first and last line where the /* and the */ would be. Everything on the lines in between prints correctly. Anyone know how it would print these extra characters at the beginning and end. My guess is because to avoid the comments i have an inner loop that continues, but it also reads the next line of the file, then i have an outer loop that also reads the next line could this be interfering with each other? Here is the loop to ignore comments and store everything else.
Code:
# find the points
while read line
do
  firstCoord=`echo $line | cut -d ' ' -f1`
  firstPoint=`echo $line | cut -d ' ' -f2`
  tempPoint=`echo $line | cut -d ' ' -f3`
  secondPoint=`echo $line | cut -d ' ' -f4`
  firstChar=`echo $line | cut -c1`
  ##echo "this is the first coord " $firstCoord
  #echo "this is the first point" $firstPoint
  #echo "this is the temp point" $tempPoint
  #echo "this point is hte second point "$secondPoint
  echo "the first char of the line is " $firstChar

  if [ "$firstChar" == '/' ]
  then
    while [ "$firstChar" != '*' ]
    do
      read line
      firstChar=`echo $line | cut -c1`
      continue;
    done
  fi

  if [[ "$firstPoint" == 'x' || "$firstPoint" == 'X' || "$firstPoint" == 'y' || "$firstPoint" == 'Y' ]]
  then
    Xpoints[$count]=$tempPoint
    Ypoints[$count]=$tempPoint

  elif [ "$firstCoord" == 'x' ]
  then
    Xpoints[$count]=$firstPoint
    Ypoints[$count]=$secondPoint

  elif [ "$firstCoord" == 'X' ]
  then
    Xpoints[$count]=$firstPoint
    Ypoints[$count]=$secondPoint

  elif [ "$firstCoord" == 'y' ]
  then
    Ypoints[$count]=$firstPoint
    Xpoints[$count]=$secondPoint

  elif [ "$firstCoord" == 'Y' ]
  then
    Ypoints[$count]=$firstPoint
    Xpoints[$count]=$secondPoint

  else
    Xpoints[$count]=$firstCoord
    Ypoints[$count]=$firstPoint
  fi

  (( count++ ))
done < "xaa"
The part i'm concerned with is the first if statement that finds the / and then reads lines and finds the * Thanks