Hi, I need an urgent help with a complex situation. I really appreciate your help! I have a parameter file like this. unix> cat script.par name=david city=portland job=(admin,manager) admin_role=(calls,meetings,gusts) manager_role=(meetings,workers) age=60 I have to use the above parameters in a shell script. Since the number of parameters are high I can't pass them as $1.. $10 etc in the command prompt. Number of oarameters in script.par can vary. In the shell script I need to read the values in script.par and assign them to different variables as shown below! name=david city=portland job_1=admin job_2=manager admin_role_1=calls admin_role_2=meetings admin_role_3=gusts manager_role_1=meetings manager_role_2=workers age=60 Please let me know how to achieve this. I hope I am clear on my questions. I appreciate your help. Thank you so much! Have a great day, Sam

Try this : ReadParams() { eval $( awk -F "=" ' NF >= 2 {    variable = $1;    value    = $2;    if (value ~ /^\(.*\)[:space:]*$/) {       sub(/^\(/, "", value);       sub(/\)[:space:]*$/, "", value);       nbv = split(value, values, ",")       for (i=1; i<=nbv; i++)   print variable "_" i "=" values[i];    } else {       print variable "=" value;    } } ' $1 )     } ReadParams script.par Jean-Pierre.

Thank you so much for the help. I would like to know what is the purpose of ~, :space: in the awk command. I really appreciate if you could give me brief description of each line with in the awk command. I am trying to understand what it is doing. since values can vary in script.par file, when I am using the variables I want to know what's the max values supplied for that variable. in other words there will be 3 admin roles (admin_role_1=calls, admin_role_2=meetings, admin_role_3=gusts) and two manager roles (manager_role_1=meetings, manager_role_2=workers), so number of values are changing. so, Would you please let me know how to know what's the max values supplied for a given variable so that i will refer to only to those variables in shell script. Thank you so much for your help! Have a great day! Sam

Some explanations about the script -F "=" Set the internal awk variable FS to "=".,this specify the field separator value. NF >= 2 { . . . . } Select lines with two or more fields (in the form variable=value) and specify the code to execute for those lines. variable = $1 ; value = $2 Get the variable name an it's value (fields delimited by FS="=") if (value ~ /^\(.*\)[:space:]*$/) { ... } Test if the value is an array definition value ~ /.../ : value match the regular expression ^ : start of string \(.*\) : characters between parenthesis [:space:]* : spaces (space or tab) $ : end of string sub(/^\(/,"",value) Remove ( at start of string in variable value sub(/\)[:space:]*$/,"",value") Remove last ) and optionals spaces at end of string in variable value. Now, value contains elements of array delimited by commas nbv = split(value, values, ",") The elements of array are stored in the array values (elements delimited by "," in value). The number of elements is stored in the variable nbv. for (i=1; i<=nbv; i++) print variable "_" i "=" values[i]; For each element of the array a variable assignment is created in the form : variable_n=value_n else { print variable "=" value } The else state for 'not an array definition'. The variable assignment is printed in the form : variable=value (same as input without optional ending spaces). The global result of the awk script is a list of variable assignments that are evaluated by the 'eval' command to define script variables. You need to determine how many values are supplied for a variable (array definition). I propose you to define an extra variable which contains this count (for example admin_role_count=3). Add the following statement in the awk script : for (i=1; i<=nbv; i++)    print variable "_" i "=" values[i]; print variable "_count=" nbv; Jean-Pierre.

Hi Jean, Thank you so much! This really helped me a lot. I appreciate your help. Thanks again! Have a great day! Sam

Hi Jean, I am sorry to post another question. some parameters in script.par file can be commented out. Would you please let me know how to handle that. An example situation: I commented out "city" in script.par and this parameter should not be used in shell script. Would you please let me know how to handle that. DEV UNIX 27> cat script.par name=david #city=phoenix job=(admin,manager) admin_role=(calls,meetings,gusts) manager_role=(meetings,workers) age=60 DEV UNIX 28> Thanks a lot for your help! Have a great day! Sam

Hi Jean, I modified the script like this to handle the commented parameters. It is working as expected. When you get a chance please verify this. Please look at my earlier post for the challenge I am facing. Modified script. Please let me know if I am doing it right - ReadParams() { eval $( awk -F "=" ' NF >= 2 { variable = $1; value = $2; if (variable !~ /^#/) { if (value ~ /^\(.*\)[:space:]*$/) { sub(/^\(/, "", value); sub(/\)[:space:]*$/, "", value); nbv = split(value, values, ",") for (i=1; i<=nbv; i++) print variable "_" i "=" values[i]; print variable "_max" "=" nbv; } else { print variable "=" value; } } } ' $1 ) } ReadParams script2.par Thank you so much! Have a great day! Regards, Sam