checking for the first line of the file

[Pando]

Dear Gurus,

I would like to ask how would i check the content of first line the file (grep?). Normally, the first line of the file would be

Test Center, XXXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX
...
...

However, some file have different pattern. So what i would like to do is check first the first line of the file if it contains the Test Center word and do nothing. If the first line does not contain the word Test Center, then it will be move to a temp directory.

Maximum point for all correct replies!

[twang]

use head command to list the first line of the file:
# head -n 1 source_file

[A. Clay Stephenson]

There are several approaches but 2 that come to mind immediately are the shell built-in read command and the line command.
I think we'll use read

#!/usr/bin/sh

typeset MYFILE=""
typeset X=""
typeset -i STAT=0
typeset -i GREPSTAT=0

MYFILE=/xxx/yyy/myfile.txt
if [[ -r "${MYFILE}" ]]
then
read X < "${MYFILE}"
echo "${X}" | grep -q -i "Test Center"
GREPSTAT=${?}
if [[ ${GREPSTAT} -eq 0 ]]
then
echo "File should be moved"
else
echo "No match"
fi
else
echo "File ${MYFILE} not found" >&2
STAT=1
fi
exit ${STAT}

------------------

read when used like this will read 1 line from stdin. Note the use of quotes. Grep -q is used because we are only interested in the exit status (${?})of the command. 0 => match.

[Sandman!]

Here's a shell script that you could use:


#!/bin/sh

for i in $(ls -1 )
do
awk 'NR==1 && $0!~/^Test Center,/ {system("mv "FILENAME" /tmp")}' $i
done

[Hein van den Heuvel]

perl -ne 'exit ( /^Test Center,/' file


now test status.

-n = loop through input
-e = perl script to follow
exit immediately on reading the first line with the status being the match condition.

hth,
Hein.

[Peter Nikitka]

Hi,

to add a sed solution:

for file in *
do
first=$(sed 1q $file)
case "$first" in
TestCenter,*) ;;
*) mv $file tempdir ;;
esac
done

mfG Peter

[Hein van den Heuvel]

Had a missing closing paren on the first example, and forgot about the rename request itself:

perl -ne 'close ARGV; rename $ARGV, "temp" unless /^Test Center,/' file

Hein.

[Mark Fenton]

an alternate version with head and grep:

#!/bin/sh
cd /place_where_the_files_live
for file in `ls` ; do
mytest=`head -1 $file|grep "Test Center"`
if [ -z $mytest ]
then
mv $file /temp_directory
fi
done

[Mark Fenton]

Forgot quotes around $mytest; corrected.

#!/bin/sh
cd /place_where_the_files_live
for file in `ls` ; do
mytest=`head -1 $file|grep "Test Center"`
if [ -z "$mytest" ]
then
mv $file /temp_directory
fi
done

[Geoff Wild]

head -1 $MYFILE |grep "Test Center"
if [ $? -eq 0 ]
then
exit 99
else

put code here you want to do

fi
exit 0


Rgds...Geoff