On Fri, Jul 16, 2004 at 10:29:38PM -0400, Aaron Gaudio wrote: > Behold, Ow Mun Heng <Ow.Mun.Heng@xxxxxxx> hath decreed: > > Guys, > > > > Writing a batch_create_new_user script. > > input is a file with this format > > > > Username:Full Name:Default Group:Default Shell:Home Directory:Password > > > > and the using those fields ($1 $2 $3 etc) and passing then to the useradd program > > > > I'm having some trouble getting bash to get the positional fields into variables which I > > can then plug into useradd > > > > eg: > > pseudo code > > for each line in input file > > do > > username=$1 > > name=$2 > > useradd -c "$2" $1 > > done > > > > I ended up using awk, which works but seems complicated > > > > eval `awk -F ':' \ > > '{printf ("useradd -c \"%s\" ",$2)}; \ > > length($3)>0 {printf ("-g %s ",$3)}; \ > > length($4)>0 {printf ("-s %s ",$4)}; \ > > length($5)>0 {printf ("-d %s ",$5)}; \ > > {printf ("%s\n;",$1)};' $1` > > > > Can it be done using bash itself? (without calling awk) > > Actually I was hoping I can get awk to get the fields for the variables > How about using the IFS variable for this ? set IFS to ':' and run a for...done loop over each line of the input file. Karsten -- Karsten Hopp <karsten@xxxxxxxxx> GPG 1024D/70ABD02C Fingerprint D2D4 3B6B 2DE4 464C A432 210A DFF8 A140 70AB D02C Red Hat Deutschland, Hauptstaetter Str.58 70178 Stuttgart, Tel.+49-711-96437-0, Fax +49-711-96437-111