topic Re: Simple scripting issue that's got me stumped right now in Operating System - HP-UX

Simple scripting issue that's got me stumped right now

S.Rider — Tue, 19 Apr 2005 15:49:48 GMT

/usr/sbin/swlist | grep CPB | sort | tail -1
works fine on my local server

But if I set a variable equal to the command
export CMD1="/usr/sbin/swlist | grep | sort | tail -1"
and then "$CMD1", it's not recognizing the pipe symbols and I get errors about "software | not found" and "sofware grep not found" etc.

But a "remsh xxxxxxx $CMD1" works fine.

I'm trying to get a script that will issue the same command on both the local server and a list of remote servers and I'm stumped why it's being treated differently on the local server.

Re: Simple scripting issue that's got me stumped right now

Alex Lavrov. — Tue, 19 Apr 2005 15:53:36 GMT

Interesting ....

try:
export CMD1='/usr/sbin/swlist | grep | sort | tail -1'

(' instead of ")

Re: Simple scripting issue that's got me stumped right now

RAC_1 — Tue, 19 Apr 2005 15:54:36 GMT

Use single quotes.

Re: Simple scripting issue that's got me stumped right now

Alex Lavrov. — Tue, 19 Apr 2005 15:57:11 GMT

Hey, just tried it on linux (don't have hp here) it's acting the same.

Single quote didn't help, but:

export CMD1="/usr/sbin/swlist | grep | sort | tail -1"
sh $CMD1

worked fine.

that's why it works with "remsh", it's just like running it with "sh".

Re: Simple scripting issue that's got me stumped right now

Cesare Salvioni — Tue, 19 Apr 2005 16:01:34 GMT

hi

try this:
CMD1="/usr/sbin/swlist | grep | sort | tail -1"
eval $CMD1

the problem is that you must force the shell to eval the line twice, the first one to substitute the variable, second one to exec the pipe. Is like:

a="echo b=test"
eval $a

or

eval $(resize) in a xterm

hope it helps

Re: Simple scripting issue that's got me stumped right now

Biswajit Tripathy — Tue, 19 Apr 2005 16:10:38 GMT

Interestingly, the "problem" is with pipe. You could use
set CMD="ls -al" and run $CMD and it works fine.

- Biswajit

Re: Simple scripting issue that's got me stumped right now

S.Rider — Tue, 19 Apr 2005 16:19:19 GMT

Thanks guys, fixed in minutes for me.
Single quotes didn't help, "sh $CMD1" kept giving me "execute permission denied" but "eval $CMD1" worked great.

Re: Simple scripting issue that's got me stumped right now

Biswajit Tripathy — Fri, 22 Apr 2005 18:48:54 GMT

Another option is

alias CMD1="/usr/sbin/swlist | grep | sort | tail -1"
CMD1

- Biswajit