Hello again.

I'm still learning, but a lot of it I am finding through reading the
groups and by asking Google nicely, however I have yet to find an answer
to this one.

I am trying to break a word down into individual characters. OK that's
not true, I'm trying to break down the file permissions into individual
sections.

I've got ls -l filename | awk ' { print $1 } ' which works (I worked
this out myself, so if there is an easier/better way of getting it, I'd
appreciate it...) Its giving me what I think I want (-rw-r--r--) but I
am trying to figure out how to break it down into individual letters. I
have seen examples of "case in (?r*)" format but this would leave me
with a lot of variations to consider when I am trying to translate the
file permission string into a pretty table.

so my question is, how can I change a word (-rw-r--r-- or equiv) into a
list/array of individual characters.

Thanks for your time.

Mitch.

Mitch wrote:
> Hello again.
>
> I'm still learning, but a lot of it I am finding through reading the
> groups and by asking Google nicely, however I have yet to find an answer
> to this one.
>
> I am trying to break a word down into individual characters. OK that's
> not true, I'm trying to break down the file permissions into individual
> sections.
>
> I've got ls -l filename | awk ' { print $1 } ' which works (I worked
> this out myself, so if there is an easier/better way of getting it, I'd
> appreciate it...) Its giving me what I think I want (-rw-r--r--) but I
> am trying to figure out how to break it down into individual letters. I
> have seen examples of "case in (?r*)" format but this would leave me
> with a lot of variations to consider when I am trying to translate the
> file permission string into a pretty table.
>
> so my question is, how can I change a word (-rw-r--r-- or equiv) into a
> list/array of individual characters.
>
> Thanks for your time.
>
> Mitch.

If you want to stay with awk have a look at this program...

ls -l | awk 'NR>1 {split($1,a,""); for(i=1;i<=10;i++) print a[i]}'

If you just want to process a single file then omit the condition...

ls -l filename | awk '{split($1,a,""); for(i=1;i<=10;i++) print a[i]}'


Janis

On 2006-11-03, Mitch wrote:
> Hello again.
>
> I'm still learning, but a lot of it I am finding through reading the
> groups and by asking Google nicely, however I have yet to find an answer
> to this one.
>
> I am trying to break a word down into individual characters. OK that's
> not true, I'm trying to break down the file permissions into individual
> sections.
>
> I've got ls -l filename | awk ' { print $1 } ' which works (I worked
> this out myself, so if there is an easier/better way of getting it, I'd
> appreciate it...) Its giving me what I think I want (-rw-r--r--) but I
> am trying to figure out how to break it down into individual letters. I
> have seen examples of "case in (?r*)" format but this would leave me
> with a lot of variations to consider when I am trying to translate the
> file permission string into a pretty table.
>
> so my question is, how can I change a word (-rw-r--r-- or equiv) into a
> list/array of individual characters.

set -- $( ls -l "$filename" | sed -e 's/ .*//' -e 's/./& /g' )


--
Chris F.A. Johnson, author <http://cfaj.freeshell.org/shell>
Shell Scripting Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach (2005, Apress)
===== My code in this post, if any, assumes the POSIX locale
===== and is released under the GNU General Public Licence

Janis Papanagnou wrote:
> Mitch wrote:
>> Hello again.
>>
>> I'm still learning, but a lot of it I am finding through reading the
>> groups and by asking Google nicely, however I have yet to find an
>> answer to this one.
>>
>> I am trying to break a word down into individual characters. OK
>> that's not true, I'm trying to break down the file permissions into
>> individual sections.
>>
>> I've got ls -l filename | awk ' { print $1 } ' which works (I worked
>> this out myself, so if there is an easier/better way of getting it,
>> I'd appreciate it...) Its giving me what I think I want (-rw-r--r--)
>> but I am trying to figure out how to break it down into individual
>> letters. I have seen examples of "case in (?r*)" format but this
>> would leave me with a lot of variations to consider when I am trying
>> to translate the file permission string into a pretty table.
>>
>> so my question is, how can I change a word (-rw-r--r-- or equiv) into
>> a list/array of individual characters.
>>
>> Thanks for your time.
>>
>> Mitch.
>
> If you want to stay with awk have a look at this program...
>
> ls -l | awk 'NR>1 {split($1,a,""); for(i=1;i<=10;i++) print a[i]}'
>
> If you just want to process a single file then omit the condition...
>
> ls -l filename | awk '{split($1,a,""); for(i=1;i<=10;i++) print a[i]}'
>
>
> Janis

Thank you, that worked perfectly. It forced me to learn a bit more awk
than I had, but that's no bad thing. Cheers!

Chris F.A. Johnson wrote:
> On 2006-11-03, Mitch wrote:
>> Hello again.
>>
>> I'm still learning, but a lot of it I am finding through reading the
>> groups and by asking Google nicely, however I have yet to find an answer
>> to this one.
>>
>> I am trying to break a word down into individual characters. OK that's
>> not true, I'm trying to break down the file permissions into individual
>> sections.
>>
>> I've got ls -l filename | awk ' { print $1 } ' which works (I worked
>> this out myself, so if there is an easier/better way of getting it, I'd
>> appreciate it...) Its giving me what I think I want (-rw-r--r--) but I
>> am trying to figure out how to break it down into individual letters. I
>> have seen examples of "case in (?r*)" format but this would leave me
>> with a lot of variations to consider when I am trying to translate the
>> file permission string into a pretty table.
>>
>> so my question is, how can I change a word (-rw-r--r-- or equiv) into a
>> list/array of individual characters.
>
> set -- $( ls -l "$filename" | sed -e 's/ .*//' -e 's/./& /g' )
>
>

Thanks, though I haven't had a chance to look at sed past simple
s/old/new yet. I know what -e does but have yet to read up on the
special characters. I know that & matches the found sample... I tried to
get this to work but just had no luck with it as is. the set --, does
this mean something I haven't come across yet because it gives errors if
I stick it in the command line. in fact if I include anything other than
ls -l "$filename" | sed -e 's/ .*//' -e 's/./& /g' I get errors. That
said, without the other bits works a treat,so thank you. I was just
curious why the outer parts were added.

Thanks!

Mitch.

On 2006-11-04, Mitch wrote:
> Chris F.A. Johnson wrote:
>> On 2006-11-03, Mitch wrote:
>>> Hello again.
>>>
>>> I'm still learning, but a lot of it I am finding through reading the
>>> groups and by asking Google nicely, however I have yet to find an answer
>>> to this one.
>>>
>>> I am trying to break a word down into individual characters. OK that's
>>> not true, I'm trying to break down the file permissions into individual
>>> sections.
>>>
>>> I've got ls -l filename | awk ' { print $1 } ' which works (I worked
>>> this out myself, so if there is an easier/better way of getting it, I'd
>>> appreciate it...) Its giving me what I think I want (-rw-r--r--) but I
>>> am trying to figure out how to break it down into individual letters. I
>>> have seen examples of "case in (?r*)" format but this would leave me
>>> with a lot of variations to consider when I am trying to translate the
>>> file permission string into a pretty table.
>>>
>>> so my question is, how can I change a word (-rw-r--r-- or equiv) into a
>>> list/array of individual characters.
>>
>> set -- $( ls -l "$filename" | sed -e 's/ .*//' -e 's/./& /g' )
>
> Thanks, though I haven't had a chance to look at sed past simple
> s/old/new yet. I know what -e does but have yet to read up on the
> special characters. I know that & matches the found sample...

The other special characters are '.' and '*'; the dot matches any
single character, and the asterisk matches zero or more of the
preceding character.

> I tried to get this to work but just had no luck with it as is.

What does "no luck" mean? Please be specific.

> the set --, does this mean something I haven't come across yet
> because it gives errors if I stick it in the command line.

What errors?

> in fact if I include anything other than ls -l "$filename" | sed -e
> 's/ .*//' -e 's/./& /g' I get errors.

Are you using [t]csh? If so, Bourne-shell syntax will not work.

> That said, without the other bits works a treat,so thank you. I was
> just curious why the outer parts were added.

The script places each permissions character in a positional
parameter, so that they can be referred to by number:
$1, $2, ... ${10}.

--
Chris F.A. Johnson, author <http://cfaj.freeshell.org/shell>
Shell Scripting Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach (2005, Apress)
===== My code in this post, if any, assumes the POSIX locale
===== and is released under the GNU General Public Licence

Mitch wrote:
> Janis Papanagnou wrote:
>> Mitch wrote:
>>> Hello again.
[...]
>>> Mitch.
[...]
>> If you just want to process a single file then omit the condition...
>>
>> ls -l filename | awk '{split($1,a,""); for(i=1;i<=10;i++) print a[i]}'
>>
>>
>> Janis
>
> Thank you, that worked perfectly. It forced me to learn a bit more awk
> than I had, but that's no bad thing. Cheers!

Hopefully a quick one...

This prints the array, but with a newline after each character. What I
was hoping for, and have tried extensively is below:

ls -l | awk '{split($1,a,""); for(i=2;i<=10;i++) print -n a[i]}'

There are only 2 changes, the first is the for loop, I'm starting from 2
as I'm not interested currently in the file/directory bit. The second
and important change is the -n argument to print. I would like all the
characters separated by a space, or tab, but am having serious trouble
with those characters in sed or awk. do you know how I might do this?
I'm not near enough to understanding the other (sed) suggestion by Chris
yet to be able to use it (although it works the way i want it to). My
version of awk is GNU awk 3.1.0 and sed is GNU sed 3.02

putting the -n option after print i though removed the newline, but
instead it adds a zero to the beginning of every line. I thought i
could use sed s/ to replace the newlines with tabs or spaces, but it
appears that this is virtually impossible as well.

Any ideas?

Thanks again!

Mitch wrote:
> Mitch wrote:
>
>> Janis Papanagnou wrote:
>>
>>> Mitch wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hello again.
>
> [...]
>
>>>> Mitch.
>
> [...]
>
>>> If you just want to process a single file then omit the condition...
>>>
>>> ls -l filename | awk '{split($1,a,""); for(i=1;i<=10;i++) print a[i]}'
>>>
>>>
>>> Janis
>>
>>
>> Thank you, that worked perfectly. It forced me to learn a bit more
>> awk than I had, but that's no bad thing. Cheers!
>
>
> Hopefully a quick one...
>
> This prints the array, but with a newline after each character. What I
> was hoping for, and have tried extensively is below:
>
> ls -l | awk '{split($1,a,""); for(i=2;i<=10;i++) print -n a[i]}'
>
> There are only 2 changes, the first is the for loop, I'm starting from 2
> as I'm not interested currently in the file/directory bit. The second
> and important change is the -n argument to print. I would like all the
> characters separated by a space, or tab, but am having serious trouble
> with those characters in sed or awk. do you know how I might do this?
> I'm not near enough to understanding the other (sed) suggestion by Chris
> yet to be able to use it (although it works the way i want it to). My
> version of awk is GNU awk 3.1.0 and sed is GNU sed 3.02
>
> putting the -n option after print i though removed the newline, but
> instead it adds a zero to the beginning of every line. I thought i
> could use sed s/ to replace the newlines with tabs or spaces, but it
> appears that this is virtually impossible as well.
>
> Any ideas?

In awk there are no "options to commands", thus no '-n'. Use printf,
instead (as in the C language)...

printf("%s ", a[i]);

....or whatever format specifier is best for your needs.

Janis

>
> Thanks again!