Complex Sed/Awk Question?

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

Hello,

So i have this file called /apps/turnout which looks like that of the contents of the /etc/shadow (but not exactly)

the file has a long list in it. basically, the contents of this file looks something similar to the following:

jajajajalala:D#$#AFVAdfda
lalabavisof:#%R@fafla#$
anthovolad:#%)@#Fafdf834

The first field is the username, the second field is something else.

now, how can i insert a new username into the this file in a alphabetical order without actually going into the file. i hate having to vi/emacs/ed or whatever when i dont have to.

so, in otherwords, say i have a name like:

mjackson:#$#$#$%adf#$#

and i want to insert it into the file /apps/turnout so it is placed inside the file in its alphabetical place, how do i accomplish that from the command line.

(i dont want to do the other technique of copying the original file, editing the copy and then rewriting the original.)

2

try something like that :

echo 'mjackson:#$#$#$%adf#$#' >> /apps/turnout 
sort -t: -k1,1 -o /apps/turnout  /apps/turnout

Jean-Pierre.

3

here is the tool kind of stuff

#! /usr/bin/bash
echo -e "Enter the username :\c"
read r
cat /apps/turnout|cut -d ":" -f1|grep $r
if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
echo "username already found"
else
echo $r':#$#$#$%adf#$#' >> /apps/turnout
sort -t ":" -k1,1 -o /apps/turnout /apps/turnout
fi

4

Thanks guys. I'll try your suggestions. Thanks a million :slight_smile: