Help with standard input to a script.

[Russ Hancock_1]

Hi People.

I have a requirement for a script that can handle a file that is piped in via standard input.
i.e cat inputfile | my_script
Once inside the script how can I reference the inputfile?
With normal inputs you can use $1 $2 etc, is there anything like that for piped input??

Cheers
Russ.

[A. Clay Stephenson]

All you need to do is something like this:

while read X |
do
echo $X
# reads stdin 1 line at a time
done

If you would like split each line into $1, $2, ...

ARGS=$*
while read X |
do
set $X
# now $X has been split into $1, $2, ...
# $# is the number of vars
done

No points please, Clay

[Robin Wakefield]

Hi Russ,

I would use an exported variable, which can then be read within your script:

FILE=inputfile
export FILE
cat $FILE | your_script

Rgds, Robin.

[harry d brown jr]

Russ,


while read w1 w2 w3 w4 w5 w6 w7 w8 w9 w10
do
echo $w1 $w2 $w3 $w4 $w5 $w6 $w7 $w8 $w9 $w10
done


live free or die
harry

[Steven Sim Kok Leong]

Hi,

I agree with Robin.

Had wanted to post exactly the same yesterday but was unable to due to forum connectivity issues with replying.

Hope this helps. Regards.

Steven Sim Kok Leong

[Peter Kloetgen]

Hi ,

why don't you simply change positions using command substitution:

your_script `cat input_file`

you use the standard input for the input file and you get a parameter list which you can use inside your script...

Allways stay on the bright side of life!

Peter

[Kenny Chau]

Well, you can do it on this way:

# your_script inputfile

In your_script, you can add these lines:

while read field1 field2 field3
do
your_process
done < $1

This will read the lines from your inputfile and do the process that you want. If you inputfile had 7 fields, add up to field7 in the 'while' line.

Hope this helps.
Kenny.