Hi all; I keep getting syntax error on this command. Would any one help? set [ $var [ exec grep "testtime" testfile.log | sed -e "/repo/s/.*.repo//" | sed -e "/ -f/s/ -f.*.//" | sed -e "/ -DMPMD/s/ -DMPMD.*.//" | sed -e "/ -a/s/ -a.*.//" | sed -e "/ -continue/s/ -continue.*.*//" | cut -d "/" -f 2 | uniq ]] I set the result of the exec to $var the exec sequence is a grep for a parttern and strip everything off. Thanks all

This looks like expect. set [ $var [ exec grep "testtime" testfile.log | sed -e "/repo/s/.*.repo//" \ -e "/ -f/s/ -f.*.//" \ -e "/ -DMPMD/s/ -DMPMD.*.//" \ -e "/ -a/s/ -a.*.//" \ -e "/ -continue/s/ -continue.*.*//" | cut -d "/" -f 2 | uniq ]] Instead of piping the results to another instance of sed, you can string multiple condtions together with the "-e" flag. Consider using a different delimter other than "/" if your pattern will contain slashes. sed -e "/repo/s/.*.repo//" could look like either sed -e ",repo/s/.*.repo,," or sed -e "/repo\/s\/.*.repo//"

yes, it is expect the exec grep work fine the problem is set not the sed