Bash - run command using lines from text file

Question

I am a bit new to bash scripting and have not been able to find an answer for what I am about to ask, that is if it is possible.

I have a text file which is created by search a directory using grep for files containing "Name" and outputs the below, say the file is called PathOutput.txt

/mnt/volnfs3rvdata/4007dc45-477a-45b2-9c28-43bc5bbb4f9f/master/vms/4c3483af-b41a-4979-98b7-6f6a4f147670/4c3483af-b41a-4979-98b7-6f6a4f147670.ovf

/mnt/volnfs3rvdata/4007dc45-477a-45b2-9c28-43bc5bbb4f9f/master/vms/5b5538a5-423f-4eaf-9678-d377a6706c58/5b5538a5-423f-4eaf-9678-d377a6706c58.ovf

/mnt/volnfs3rvdata/4007dc45-477a-45b2-9c28-43bc5bbb4f9f/master/vms/0e2d1451-45cc-456e-846d-d174515a60dd/0e2d1451-45cc-456e-846d-d174515a60dd.ovf

/mnt/volnfs3rvdata/4007dc45-477a-45b2-9c28-43bc5bbb4f9f/master/vms/daaf622e-e035-4c1b-a6d7-8ee209c4ded6/daaf622e-e035-4c1b-a6d7-8ee209c4ded6.ovf

/mnt/volnfs3rvdata/4007dc45-477a-45b2-9c28-43bc5bbb4f9f/master/vms/48f52ab9-64df-4b1e-9c35-c024ae2a64c4/48f52ab9-64df-4b1e-9c35-c024ae2a64c4.ovf

Now what I would like to do if possible is loop through the file with a command, using a variable to bring in each line in the text file. But I cannot work out a way to run the command againist each line. With all my playing around I did get a results where it would run once against the first line, but this was when the output of grep was piped into another command.

At the moment in a bash script I am just extracting the paths to PathOutput.txt, cat to display the paths, then copy the path I want to a read -p command to create a variable to run against a command. It works fine now, just have to run the script each time for each path. If I could get the command to loop through each line I could output the results to a txt file.

Is it possible?

Chris Seymour · Accepted Answer · 2013-02-19 13:32:40Z

4

You could use xargs:

$ xargs -n1 echo "arg:" < file
arg: /mnt/volnfs3rvdata/4007dc45-477a-45b2-9c28-43bc5bbb4f9f/master/vms/4c3483af-b41a-4979-98b7-6f6a4f147670/4c3483af-b41a-4979-98b7-6f6a4f147670.ovf
arg: /mnt/volnfs3rvdata/4007dc45-477a-45b2-9c28-43bc5bbb4f9f/master/vms/5b5538a5-423f-4eaf-9678-d377a6706c58/5b5538a5-423f-4eaf-9678-d377a6706c58.ovf
arg: /mnt/volnfs3rvdata/4007dc45-477a-45b2-9c28-43bc5bbb4f9f/master/vms/0e2d1451-45cc-456e-846d-d174515a60dd/0e2d1451-45cc-456e-846d-d174515a60dd.ovf
arg: /mnt/volnfs3rvdata/4007dc45-477a-45b2-9c28-43bc5bbb4f9f/master/vms/daaf622e-e035-4c1b-a6d7-8ee209c4ded6/daaf622e-e035-4c1b-a6d7-8ee209c4ded6.ovf
arg: /mnt/volnfs3rvdata/4007dc45-477a-45b2-9c28-43bc5bbb4f9f/master/vms/48f52ab9-64df-4b1e-9c35-c024ae2a64c4/48f52ab9-64df-4b1e-9c35-c024ae2a64c4.ovf

Just replace echo "arg:" with the command you actually want to use. If you want to passed all the files at once drop the -n1 option.

answered Feb 19, 2013 at 13:32

Chris Seymour

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1 Comment

StevieHyperB Over a year ago

Thank you this has worked for what I needed. Just entered in the commad xargs -n1 awk 'BEGIN[FS="Name>";RS"/"]{print $2}' < PathOutput.txt > Outputofawk.txt Just need to clean up the results from this and all should be working. Thank you

chepner · Accepted Answer · 2013-02-19 13:28:54Z

2

If I understand correctly, you may want something like this:

for L in `cat PathOutput.txt`; do
    echo "I read line $L from PathOutput.txt"
    # do something useful with $L
done

edited Feb 19, 2013 at 13:28

chepner

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answered Feb 19, 2013 at 10:51

user570500

2 Comments

244an Over a year ago

I think it's more preferable to use < file construct, e.g. while read L; ...; done < PathOutput.txt

StevieHyperB Over a year ago

Got this working just with a slight adjustment, for the moment I will stick with xargs just as its one line. Thanks for the advice this was working. I would give you a Vote up but my rep is not high enough!!!!!! CAT=$(cat VMHEX_F.txt) for Line in $CAT do awk 'BEGIN{FS="Name>";RS="/"}{print $2}' $Line > Ifthisworks.txt done

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