[TriLUG] Scripting question

[Janyne Kizer]

Thanks everyone!  :-)

"Stephen P. Schaefer" wrote:
> 
> Ack, I forgot the ":" character, to ensure that the full userid gets
> matched.  Since you want it in a variable, I suggest this might be more
> reliable than your proposed solution:
> 
> homedir=`awk -F":" "/^${userid}:/ { print \\$6 }" /etc/passwd`
> 
> I'm worried that your \<$userid\> might match something in the GECOS
> field for the wrong account.  The regular expression I propose will only
>   match at the beginning of the password line, and will match the entire
> userid in passwd (since : is an illegal character in a userid).
> 
>      - Stephen
> 
> Janyne Kizer wrote:
> > Now I wish that I had posted sooner.  I think that I have it working
> > now.  Isn't that always the case?  Right after I ask for help I have an
> > "ah ha!" moment...
> >
> > homedir=`grep "\<$userid\>" /etc/passwd | awk -F":"  {'print $6'}`
> >
> > Thanks for listening!
> >
> > Janyne Kizer wrote:
> >
> >>I am trying to get a list of home directories for regular users in a
> >>script.  The problem that I am running into is we have some cases where
> >>users with similar IDs are on the system.  For example, sa, saclark and
> >>sange or edware and dware.  On our test system we have emma and emma60.
> >>Anyway, I am trying to do something similar to this:
> >>
> >>for userid in `cat /etc/passwd | awk -F":" {'print $1'} | grep -xv
> >>"^the-stuff-we-don't-want"
> >>homedir=`grep $userid /etc/passwd | awk -F":"  {'print $6'}`
> >>
> >>and of course it is returning two homedirs for emma (/home/emma and
> >>/home/emma60).  How can I get it to do an exact match?  From the command
> >>line this works:
> >>
> >>grep '\<emma\>' /etc/passwd
> >>
> >>but I must be doing something wrong with the escaping when I put it into
> >>a script.
> >>
> >>Any suggestions would be appreciated!
> >>--
> >>
> >>Janyne Kizer
> >>Systems Programmer Administrator
> >>NC State University, College of Agriculture & Life Sciences
> >>Extension Information Technology
> >>_______________________________________________
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> >>    http://www.trilug.org/~lovelace/faq/TriLUG-faq.html
> >
> >
> 
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-- 

Janyne Kizer
Systems Programmer Administrator
NC State University, College of Agriculture & Life Sciences
Extension Information Technology