This question already has answers here:
Variables in bash seq replacement ({1..10}) [duplicate]
(7 answers)
Brace expansion with a Bash variable - {0..$foo}
(5 answers)
Closed 8 years ago.
I'm making a program in bash that creates a histoplot, using numbers I have created. The numbers are stored as such (where the 1st number is how many words are on a line of a file, and the 2nd number is how many times this amount of words on a line comes up, in a given file.)
1 1
2 4
3 1
4 2
this should produce:
1 #
2 ####
3 #
4 ##
BUT the output I'm getting is:
1 #
2 #
3 #
4 #
however the for loop is not recognising that my variable "hashNo" is a number.
#!/bin/bash
if [ -e $f ] ; then
while read line
do
lineAmnt=${line% *}
hashNo=${line##* }
#VVVV Problem is this line here VVVV
for i in {1..$hashNo}
#This line ^^^^^^^ the {1..$hashNo}
do
hashes+="#"
done
printf "%4s" $lineAmnt
printf " $hashes\n"
hashes=""
done < $1
fi
the code works if I replace hashNo with a number (eg 4 makes 4 hashes in my output) but it needs to be able to change with each line (no all lines on a file will have the same amount of chars in them.
thanks for any help :D
A sequence expression in bash must be formed from either integers or characters, no parameter substitutions take place before hand. That's because, as per the bash doco:
The order of expansions is: brace expansion, tilde expansion, parameter, variable and arithmetic expansion and command substitution (done in a left-to-right fashion), word splitting, and pathname expansion.
In other words, brace expansion (which includes the sequence expression form) happens first.
In any case, this cries out to be done as a function so that it can be done easily from anywhere, and also made more efficient:
#!/bin/bash
hashes() {
sz=$1
while [[ $sz -ge 10 ]]; do
printf "##########"
((sz -= 10))
done
while [[ $sz -gt 0 ]]; do
printf "#"
((sz--))
done
}
echo 1 "$(hashes 1)"
echo 2 "$(hashes 4)"
echo 3 "$(hashes 1)"
echo 4 "$(hashes 2)"
which outputs, as desired:
1 #
2 ####
3 #
4 ##
The use of the first loop (doing ten hashes at a time) will almost certainly be more efficient than adding one character at a time and you can, if you wish, do a size-50 loop before that for even more efficiencies if your values can be larger.
I tried this for (( i=1; i<=$hashNo; i++ )) for the for loop, it seems to be working
Your loop should be
for ((i=0; i<hashNo; i++))
do
hashes+="#"
done
Also you can stick with your loop by the use of eval and command substitution $()
for i in $(eval echo {1..$hashNo})
do
hashes+="#"
done
Related
This question already has answers here:
Brace expansion with variable? [duplicate]
(6 answers)
Closed 3 years ago.
I need to get user input for a number and then write a name row by row in linux terminal that much amount of times that user inputed. Example if I lets say chose a number 2 the program will write Name 2 times row by row. I wrote some code but I cant figure where is the mistake. I think its the loop where the mistake is.
echo "Please enter a number "
read $number
for value in {$number}
do
echo "Name"
done
To read input and save it into a variable named number, do:
read number
To get the value of number, do $number or ${number}. Remove the { } in the {$number} or shift $ with {.
Just do:
echo "Please enter a number "
read number
if ! test "$number" -gt 0 2> /dev/null; then
echo "You must enter an integer greater than 0" >&2
exit 1
fi
yes Name | sed ${number}q
But don't prompt for the number. Take it as a command line argument, and just do
yes Name | sed "${1}q"
Let sed generate the error message if the parameter is invalid.
The trouble with your loop is that for value in $number takes the string $number and breaks it on whitespace (depends on IFS, actually, but let's not get bogged down by details) and iterates over each value. That is, if $number is the string 1 3 dog 5, then the loop will iterate 4 times with $value taking the values 1, 3, dog, and 5. If $number is 7, then the loop iterates exactly once. You could do for((i=0; i < $number; i++)); do ..., but that does not generate any useful error message if $number is not an integer.
Case scenario:
$ cat Status.txt
1,connected
2,connected
3,connected
4,connected
5,connected
6,connected
7,disconnected
8,disconnected
9,disconnected
10,disconnected
11,disconnected
12,disconnected
13,disconnected
14,connected
15,connected
16,connected
17,disconnected
18,connected
19,connected
20,connected
21,disconnected
22,disconnected
23,disconnected
24,disconnected
25,disconnected
26,disconnected
27,disconnected
28,disconnected
29,disconnected
30,connected
As can be seen, there are "hollows", understanding them as lines with the "disconnected" value inside the sequence file.
I want, in fact, to detect these "holes", but it would be useful if I could set a minimum n of missing numbers in the sequence.
I.e: for ' n=5' a detectable hole would be the 7... 13 part, as there are at least 5 "disconnected" in a row on the sequence. However, the missing 17 should not be considered as detectable in this case. Again, at line 21 whe get a valid disconnection.
Something like:
$ detector Status.txt -n 5 --pattern connected
7
21
... that could be interpreted like:
- Missing more than 5 "connected" starting at 7.
- Missing more than 5 "connected" starting at 21.
I need to script this on Linux shell, so I was thinking about programing some loop, parsing strings and so on, but I feel like if this could be done by using linux shell tools and maybe some simpler programming. Is there a way?
Even when small programs like csvtool are a valid solution, some more common Linux commands (like grep, cut, awk, sed, wc... etc) could be worth for me when working with embedded devices.
#!/usr/bin/env bash
last_connected=0
min_hole_size=${1:-5} # default to 5, or take an argument from the command line
while IFS=, read -r num state; do
if [[ $state = connected ]]; then
if (( (num-last_connected) > (min_hole_size+1) )); then
echo "Found a hole running from $((last_connected + 1)) to $((num - 1))"
fi
last_connected=$num
fi
done
# Special case: Need to also handle a hole that's still open at EOF.
if [[ $state != connected ]] && (( num - last_connected > min_hole_size )); then
echo "Found a hole running from $((last_connected + 1)) to $num"
fi
...emits, given your file on stdin (./detect-holes <in.txt):
Found a hole running from 7 to 13
Found a hole running from 21 to 29
See:
BashFAQ #1 - How can I read a file (data stream, variable) line-by-line (and/or field-by-field)?
The conditional expression -- the [[ ]] syntax used to make it safe to do string comparisons without quoting expansions.
Arithmetic comparison syntax -- valid in $(( )) in all POSIX-compliant shells; also available without the expansion side effects as (( )) as a bash extension.
This is the perfect use case for awk, since the machinery of line reading, column splitting, and matching is all built in. The only tricky bit is getting the command line argument to your script, but it's not too bad:
#!/usr/bin/env bash
awk -v window="$1" -F, '
BEGIN { if (window=="") {window = 1} }
$2=="disconnected"{if (consecutive==0){start=NR}; consecutive++}
$2!="disconnected"{if (consecutive>window){print start}; consecutive=0}
END {if (consecutive>window){print start}}'
The window value is supplied as the first command line argument; left out, it defaults to 1, which means "display the start of gaps with at least two consecutive disconnections". Probably could have a better name. You can give it 0 to include single disconnections. Sample output below. (Note that I added series of 2 disconnections at the end to test the failure that Charles metions).
njv#organon:~/tmp$ ./tst.sh 0 < status.txt # any number of disconnections
7
17
21
31
njv#organon:~/tmp$ ./tst.sh < status.txt # at least 2 disconnections
7
21
31
njv#organon:~/tmp$ ./tst.sh 8 < status.txt # at least 9 disconnections
21
Awk solution:
detector.awk script:
#!/bin/awk -f
BEGIN { FS="," }
$2 == "disconnected"{
if (f && NR-c==nr) c++;
else { f=1; c++; nr=NR }
}
$2 == "connected"{
if (f) {
if (c > n) {
printf "- Missing more than 5 \042connected\042 starting at %d.\n", nr
}
f=c=0
}
}
Usage:
awk -f detector.awk -v n=5 status.txt
The output:
- Missing more than 5 "connected" starting at 7.
- Missing more than 5 "connected" starting at 21.
I have a situation where I have large number of numbered variables. I want to evaluate each variable and set variable to a specific string if the condition is matched.
#!/bin/bash
var1=""
var2="1233123213"
var3="22332323222324242"
var4=""
var5=""
for i in 1 2 3 4 5
do
if [ -z "$var{$}i" ]
then
var{$}i="None"
fi
echo "var{$}i \r"
done
but the problem is when I run the script I get following.
{1} \r
{2} \r
{3} \r
{4} \r
{5} \r
How I can fix this.
Use indirect variable expansion in bash with syntax {!var}.
From the man bash page,
If the first character of parameter is an exclamation point (!), a level of variable indirection is introduced. Bash uses the value of the variable formed from the rest of parameter as the name of the variable; this variable is then expanded and that value is used in the rest of the substitution, rather than the value of parameter itself. This is known as indirect expansion. The exclamation point must immediately follow the left brace in order to introduce indirection.
Modify your code to something like below,
for i in 1 2 3 4 5
do
var="var$i"
[ -z "${!var}" ] && declare "var$i"="none"
done
printf "var1=%s\n" "$var1"
printf "var2=%s\n" "$var2"
printf "var3=%s\n" "$var3"
printf "var4=%s\n" "$var4"
printf "var5=%s\n" "$var5"
The syntax "${!var}" in this case evaluates the value of the variable within the string var which is var1, var2, var3... and the declare syntax sets the variable value at run-time, only for those variables that are empty.
Now on printing those variables produces,
var1=none
var2=1233123213
var3=22332323222324242
var4=none
var5=none
Indirect assignment will work here, but in this specific case arrays seem like a good fit :
#!/bin/bash
declare -a var=()
var+=("")
var+=(1233123213)
var+=(22332323222324242)
var+=("")
var+=("")
for i in "${!var[#]}"
do
[[ "${var[$i]}" ]] || var[$i]="None"
echo "Index: $i - Value: ${var[$i]}"
done
Consider using an array instead of numbered variables:
#!/bin/bash
var[1]=""
var[2]="1233123213"
var[3]="22332323222324242"
var[4]=""
var[5]=""
for i in 1 2 3 4 5
do
if [ -z "${var[i]}" ]
then
var[i]="None"
fi
echo "${var[i]} \r"
done
With the aid of this question, I can find out if a string holds a specific character. I want to be able to find out where the character actually is. For example for the string banana, how would I be able to determine the letter n is the 3rd and 5th letter, or for the letter a is the 2nd,4th and 6th letter. and b is the first letter.
Q: For a given string, how can I find the location of a given character in that string?
You can do it with a for loop.
char=a
string=banana
len=${#string}
for (( i=0; i < len; i++ )); do
if [[ $char == ${string:$i:1} ]]
then echo $i
fi
done
The positions printed are zero-based. You could echo $((i+1)) to get 1-based positions instead.
${string:$i:1} extracts the ith character of the string, using bash's substring operator, as explained in Shell Parameter Expansion:
${parameter:offset:length}
This is referred to as Substring Expansion. It expands to up to length characters of the value of parameter starting at the character specified by offset.
Here's a fancy way to do it:
#!/usr/bin/env bash
findChar(){
string="${1}"
char="${2}"
length=${#string}
offset=0
r=()
while true; do
string="${string#*${char}}"
length_new="${#string}"
if [[ "${length}" == "${length_new}" ]]; then
echo "${r[#]}"
return
fi
offset=($(( $offset + $length - $length_new )))
r+=("${offset}")
length="${length_new}"
done
}
findChar banana b
findChar banana a
Here's my take on this:
#!/usr/bin/env bash
[[ ${BASH_VERSINFO[0]} < 4 ]] && { echo "Requires bash 4."; exit 1; }
string="${1:-banana}"
declare -A result=()
for ((i=0; i<${#string}; i++)); do
result[${string:$i:1}]="${result[${string:$i:1}]} $i"
done
declare -p result
The idea is that we walk through the string, adding character positions to strings that are values in an array whose subscripts are the letters you're interested in. It's quick & easy, and gives you a result set you can manipulate afterwards, rather than just sending things to stdout.
My result with this is:
$ ./foo
declare -A result='([a]=" 1 3 5" [b]=" 0" [n]=" 2 4" )'
$ ./foo barber
declare -A result='([a]=" 1" [b]=" 0 3" [e]=" 4" [r]=" 2 5" )'
Results are zero-based (i.e. "b" is in position 0).
Note an interesting side-effect of this method is that every position is preceded by a space, so if you want to count the number of occurrences of a character, you can just count the spaces:
$ declare -A result
$ result[a]=" 1 3 5"
$ count="${result[a]//[0-9]/}"
$ echo "${#count}"
3
$
I don't know what you're planning to do with this data, but if you like, you could easily turn these string results into arrays of their own for easier handling within bash.
Note that associative arrays were introduced with bash version 4.
I have this:
for (( count= "$WP_RANGE_START"; count< "$WP_RANGE_STOP"+1; count=count+1 ));
Where WP_RANGE_STARTis a number like 1 and WP_RANGE_STOPis a number like 10.
Right now this will step though going 1,2,...10
How can I do so that it counts backwards?(10,9,...1)
I guess the mirror image of what you have would be
for (( count="$WP_RANGE_STOP"; count >= "$WP_RANGE_START"; count=count-1 ));
But a less cumbersome way to write it would be
for (( count=WP_RANGE_STOP; count >= WP_RANGE_START; count-- ));
The $ is unnecessary in arithmetic context.
When dealing with literals, bash has a range expansion feature using brace expansion:
for i in {0..10}; # or {10..0} or what have you
But it's cumbersome to use with variables, as the brace expansion happens before parameter expansion. It's usually easier to use arithmetic for loops in those cases.
Your incrementing code can be "simplified" as:
for count in $(eval echo {$WP_RANGE_START..$WP_RANGE_STOP});
So, to decrement you can just reverse the parameters"
for count in $(eval echo {$WP_RANGE_STOP..$WP_RANGE_START});
Assuming you've got a bash version of 3 or higher, you can specify an increment or decrement by appending it to the range, like so:
CHANGE=1
for count in $(eval echo {$WP_RANGE_STOP..$WP_RANGE_START..$CHANGE});
The for loop is your problem.
i=11 ; until [ $((i=i-1)) -lt 1 ] ; do echo $i ; done
OUTPUT
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
You don't need any bashisms at all.