I have a set of data in a text file.
aaa:bbb:ccc
ddd:fff:ggg
, seperated by ':' and I have a variables 1,2 and 3. How to seprate the data like lets say I am intrested in only aaa line. So I will have 1=aaa,2=bbb and 3=ccc.
Tried using
1=grep "$a" textfile.txt | awk -F ':' '{print $1}'
2=grep "$a" textfile.txt | awk -F ':' '{print $2}'
3=grep "$a" textfile.txt | awk -F ':' '{print $3}'
but does not work. Please advice. Thanks!
try this:
VAR1=$(grep "$a" textfile.txt | awk -F ':' '{print $1}')
VAR2=$(grep "$a" textfile.txt | awk -F ':' '{print $2}')
VAR3=$(grep "$a" textfile.txt | awk -F ':' '{print $3}')
Your variable must not be just numbers and you need to set the output of the grep to the var (not the command itself)
EDIT:
You could also use the following:
VAR1=$(awk -F ':' '{print $1}' textfile.txt)
VAR2=$(awk -F ':' '{print $2}' textfile.txt)
VAR3=$(awk -F ':' '{print $3}' textfile.txt)
The simplest you can get these variables is by using BASH array using read bulletin:
> read -a arr< <(IFS=':' && grep "aaa" file)
> printf "%s\n" "${arr[@]}"
aaa
bbb
ccc
If you want to use the positional parameters, you can use a subshell and the IFS variable to extract the values:
$ line="aaa:bbb:ccc"
$ set -- $(IFS=:; echo $line)
$ echo $1
aaa
$ echo $2
bbb
$ echo $3
ccc
To iterate over the file, using the positional parameters is needlessly opaque:
while IFS=: read -r a b c; do
echo "$((++line)), a=$a b=$b c=$c"
done < file
1, a=aaa b=bbb c=ccc
2, a=ddd b=fff c=ggg
