On 21Mar2009 16:47, Daniel B. Thurman <dant@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: >> =>> out=$(grep "$pat" "${TRACKER}" | \ >> =>> eval "$rex" | sort -n | \ >> =>> uniq >> "${TFILE}"); ret="$?"; [...] >> => if out=$(grep "$pat" "$tracker" | $rex | sort -un >>"$tfile") >> > Please note: > > When I tried `sort -un', the data was truncated, i.e. > there is data loss. So, when I went back to my original > code using 'sort -n | uniq', there is no data loss. There > seems to be a problem using the `sort -un' method. Well, they do mean slightly different things. "sort -un" sorts and returns the first row of each set of rows that sorted equal. (i.e. "1 foo" and "1 bah" sort equal (numeric) and only "1 foo" is returned. (See "man sort" for the details, and "man 1p sort" for what you may portably expect on multiple UNIX platforms.) "uniq" discards repeated identical lines. "1 foo" and "1 foo" are identical, but not "1 bah". (And uniq requires sorted input; the repeated lines must be adjacent in the input.) It is often correct to replace "sort -n | uniq" with "sort -un", but I was clearly wrong to do so here. > What I do in my code, is to create a copy of the sorted > and uniq'd original file to a temp file, and then append > new data to the temp file, then sorted and uniq the temp > file back into the original file. The result was a file that > ended up much smaller than the original file! Yah, see discussion above. Cheers, -- Cameron Simpson <cs@xxxxxxxxxx> DoD#743 http://www.cskk.ezoshosting.com/cs/ The govt MUST regulate the Net NOW! We can't have average people saying what's on their minds! - ezwriter@xxxxxxxxxx -- fedora-list mailing list fedora-list@xxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Communicate/MailingListGuidelines