I apologize if this is not the correct forum for this question. However, since
I am trying to write a script in Plan 9’s rc shell, this seemed to be the best
place to go - as most scripting resources are based on bash, and I could not
find the answer in the rc references I could find. - and I’m rather new to
scripting in general as it is.
My question: Is there a way to take the string output of a command that
contains spaces and make it a single element of an array in rc script?
For example:
If I declare an array and output its contents with the following script:
declared_array = (‘hello world’ ‘good luck’)
echo $declared_array(1)
echo $declared_array(2)
I will get:
hello world
good luck
However, if I am receiving output from sed that contains spaces from the
following script line
string_var = `{echo some_string | sed ’s/x/y/g’}
If the output was ‘hello world’, string_var would become a two element array
which
echo $some_string(1)
echo $some_string(2)
Would output
hello
world
The long version of what I am trying to do.
I am trying to take a .CSV spreadsheet and make each row into a separate text
file with the column header followed by the data for however many columns there
are. The script will also make an index file of all files generated. This is so
I can use Russ Cox’s Slide+ script to view each file, make changes, notes - and
eventually use another script to put all the files back together into a new
.CSV.
I already have a sed script that obfuscates extra quotes and commas of each
record and returns a long string that’s comma delimited
The first task of the script is to read headers (first line) and store them to
be used for each file. I want to anticipate that there may be spaces in
individual headings.
Ideally, I’d like to do this in one shot, with each heading being an individual
element of an array. I tried changing the comma delimiters to various types of
quotes in the sed script to keep headers with spaces together, but without
success. So, to move on, I obfuscated the spaces and changed the commas to
spaces. This allows the header row to be broken up appropriately, but then I
still have to reverse the obfuscation.
header = `{read $1 | sed ’s/^/,/; s/\\”/☹/g; s/,”([^”]*)”/,☺\1☻/g; s/,”/,☺/;
:MC; s/☺([^☻]*),([^☻]*)/☺\1☯\2/g; tMC; s/^,//; s/ /♪/g; s/,/ /g’}
(I quickly typed the script line, so there may be mistakes - the characters
used for obfuscation will probably be \x02 ..\x05, however, I’m using unicode
characters here as they are easier to see and debug.)
I could run sed for each header every time I generate a file, but that seems
quite redundant if I can just run sed for the header once and save the result
in a manner that is easily accessible.
This is my first foray into scripting, so I am not sure what is good practice
and form. Any suggestions are appreciated.
Thanks and best regards.
Mack
