topic Re: Another Scripting Question in Operating System - HP-UX

Another Scripting Question

Peter Day_2 — Fri, 13 Feb 2004 08:11:21 GMT

I've put together a way of getting a random file so that I can check the status of our backups.

But is there a simpler way of getting this random file.

Thanks again,
Pete

Re: Another Scripting Question

Mark Greene_1 — Fri, 13 Feb 2004 08:15:35 GMT

what is the file name scheme you are using?

mark

Re: Another Scripting Question

Peter Day_2 — Fri, 13 Feb 2004 08:19:10 GMT

Its a bit messy, but the way that I have done it, to ensure that it is a 'random' file.

bdf |Randomly pick a mounted filesystem
ls | Get a file, if is a directory drill down until I do get a file.

The whole script is about 30 lines, but I'm sure there is an easier way of doing it.

Re: Another Scripting Question

Jeroen Peereboom — Fri, 13 Feb 2004 08:26:35 GMT

What about:

generate a random number N
do a find -type f
and use awk to print line N.

JP.

Re: Another Scripting Question

Peter Day_2 — Fri, 13 Feb 2004 08:32:51 GMT

Jeroen,
I'd though of that, the problem with this is what level do I set the random number too. There are also certain files that I don't want to get back.

Thanks anyway,
Pete

Re: Another Scripting Question

Elmar P. Kolkman — Fri, 13 Feb 2004 08:43:51 GMT

What you could do is get random filesystem and then run ncheck -i on it until you get a file that is acceptable to use as test...
Or get a random number and do:
find -type f | sed 'p'

bdf -i will help you find limits for the random number in the latter case.

Re: Another Scripting Question

Mark Greene_1 — Fri, 13 Feb 2004 08:44:20 GMT

Given the nature of your situation, if what you have is working and doesn't consume a lot of resources to run, I'd stick with it. It may be ugly, but if it works, that's the important part.

mark

Re: Another Scripting Question

Jeroen Peereboom — Fri, 13 Feb 2004 08:48:53 GMT

Peter,

you may generate more than 1 randomnumber, or retry if the number is too high, although this makes it less random.

(You have posed a question on random numbers. Usually a random generator generates a number between 0 and 1 (no access to manpages iright now). You multiply this by the amount of files you have.)

Why do you want certain files excluded?
You are not restoring the files to the original location I assume?

Greetings,

JP.

Re: Another Scripting Question

Elmar P. Kolkman — Fri, 13 Feb 2004 09:04:02 GMT

As for my find solution: the sed command should be 'sed -n "p"'

Re: Another Scripting Question

RAC_1 — Fri, 13 Feb 2004 09:26:08 GMT

Is environmental variable RANDOM of any user here?