HI, IAM A UNIX BEGINNER AND IAM A COMPLETELY LOST AS TO WHAT THIS PART OF MY SHELL SCRIPT MEANS? (ls|while read xx do if [ -f $xx ] ;then (FULL SCRIPT BELOW) PLZ HELP, REGARDS 'BEMUSED UNIX ROOKIE', JANET. #!/bin/sh ls|while read xx do if [ -f $xx ] ;then dir=$(echo $xx|awk '{print substr( $1, 1, 1)}') if [ ! -d $dir ] ;then mkdir $dir fi mv $xx $dir fi done

#!/bin/sh # run the 'ls' command with each outputted # item being read into the variable 'xx' ls|while read xx do # Check if the item is a regular file if [ -f $xx ] ;then # extract the first letter of the file into # variable 'dir'. example: file named test # would set the variable $dir to 't' dir=$(echo $xx|awk '{print substr( $1, 1, 1)}') # if the 'dir' variable is not an existing # directory, create it. if [ ! -d $dir ] ;then mkdir $dir fi # move the file to the directory # example: mv test t mv $xx $dir fi done -jim