Handling Parameters in Perl

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

Hi All,

I'm pretty new to the forum and also to UNIX. I have a requirement for which I need some help. I have a script (example.script) where I get user inputs using the read command. I would need to pass the read-fetched input to a perl command (explained below) in my script. The part which confuses me is that the input has characters like / and . which has to manipulated. Please help me on the same. Below are the files.

test.file: (Current)
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.LOGON SERVER/userid,password;
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test.file: (Expected)
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.RUN FILE /home/user/my.test.logon;
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example.script:
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echo " Please enter the path to the LOGON file: \c"
read logon
 
perl -p -i -e "s/^\.LOGON.*$/.RUN FILE $logon;/g" test.file

I execute the example script as:

 
$ ksh example.script
 Please enter the path to the LOGON file: /home/user/my.test.logon

While running the above code, I am getting the below error message:

I hope this is because of using characters / and . in the input string without escape sequences (\). But basically I want input to be entered without escape characters, like in /home/user/my.test.logon, as it will be entered by all users. Is there a way in UNIX where I can have the input entered as-is and still I will be able to format the input before parsing it?

Any help on this is greatly appreciated.

Thanks in Advance. Let me know for any questions.

2

Dear Friend,

The test.file contain the following content
.LOGON SERVER/userid,password;

In the script file you should use the following perl code instead of your code

 
echo " Please enter the path to the LOGON file: \c"
read logon

perl -p -i -e "s!^\.LOGON.*!.RUN FILE $logon;!g" test.file

After run the command it will display the following
Please enter the path to the LOGON file: \c

Then give the input as like
/home/user/my.test.logon

Then see the test.file content. .It is contain the following content
.RUN FILE /home/user/my.test.logon;

3

Thanks a lot! Works like a Charm! So if we use (!) instead of (/) we do not want to escape characters like (/) and (.) ?

Please explain!

4

Refer the following link
perlre - Perl regular expressions