cp not executing in while read

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1

Hello, I am a newbie to Unix! I am having a problem trying to read in multiple values and constructing a copy command. It will work when reading in only 1 value from a file (testdata1), but there's an error when attempting to code for multiple values per line. Below are my 2 examples.

This copy command works fine....

while read userid                                                     
do                                                                    
        echo "Copy profile to" $userid                                
        copy_command="cp /u/test/.prf_common /u/$userid/.prf_test"   
        echo $copy_command                                            
        $copy_command                                                 
done < testdata1

This one returns an error...

IFS=","                                                              
while read userid name location                                      
do                                                                   
        echo "Copy profile to" $name "(" $userid ") at" $location    
        copy_command="cp /u/test/.prf_common /u/$userid/.prf_test"   
        echo $copy_command                                           
        $copy_command                                                
done < testdata2

error:

cpprf[7]: cp /u/test/.prf_common /u/abc/.prf_test:  not found.

testdata1

abc
def

testdata2

abc,Al Cooper,New York
def,Don Fields,Chicago

I'm Baffled?!!? Can someone steer me in the right direction here?

Thanks,
Andrew

2

your problem is the IFS=",". use this:

IFS=","                                                              
while read userid name location                                      
do                                                                   
        echo "Copy profile to" $name "(" $userid ") at" $location    
        copy_command="cp /u/test/.prf_common /u/$userid/.prf_test"   
        echo $copy_command
        IFS=" "                                           
        $copy_command                                                
done < testdata2

hth,
DN2

3

Thanks.
I needed one more line to reset IFS.

IFS=","                                                              
while read userid name location                                      
do                                                                   
        echo "Copy profile to" $name "(" $userid ") at" $location    
        copy_command="cp /u/test/.prf_common /u/$userid/.prf_test"   
        echo $copy_command
        IFS=" "                                           
        $copy_command                                                
        IFS=","                                           
done < testdata2