Hi, i've got a script here which lists the processes of each logged on user, beginning with the user's real name. The problem i'm having is that when it gets to the ps command, i get an error "ps: error: User name does not exist" though it then outputs each user's processes like it should. finger | while read user name junk do [[ user != Login* ]] && ps -fu $user done Can anyone tell me why it's not working properly? Many thanks in advance Oliver

You forgot the dollar sign, $, on $user: finger | while read user name junk do [[ $user != Login* ]] && ps -fu $user done

Thanks Nails! But although the error has now been corrected. i still don't get the User's name above their list of processes! What have i missed? I'm trying to get an output similar to this: Mark Thomas PID TTY TIME CMD 31799 pts/3 00:00:00 vim Tom Jones PID TTY TIME CMD 31854 pts/5 00:00:00 ps Many thanks in advance Oliver

You are only printing the contents of the ps -fu command for the user. Of course, the ps command isn't the most portable of commands, but I think you have to explictly code for the name. You can do something like this: finger | while read user fn ln junk do [[ $user != Login* ]] && echo " $fn $ln"; ps -fu $user done In the above script, I'm assuming that the second and third fields of finger's output will always be the first and last name of the user. This can readily be a bad assumption. At least on my Solaris system, the 'Name' delivered by the finger command is the comment field of the etc/passwd file - which can be anything. Have you considered printing out /etc/passwd's comment field? Then, you don't have to worry about parsing finger's output: This is my take: finger | while read user fn ln junk do if [[ $user != Login* ]] then awk ' BEGIN { FS=":" } { if($1 == v1) { # print the user name for the correct user printf(" %s\n", $5) exit } } ' v1="$user" /etc/passwd ps -fu $user fi done

thanks for the help Nails Many thanks in advance Oliver

Hi!! You have proven with the commando "w"? The exit is right what you look for. Bye