Thread: Bash Script: unexpected end of file error

I'm trying to make my first ever shell script. I almost copied and pasted this one from the web (actually I did to start with and that didn't work either).

This is what I have currently:

Code:

for pattern in "this is string one" "this is string two" ; do
for file in `find /root/pete/ -exec grep -l $pattern {} \;` ; do
ls -l $file ;
sed -e 's/$pattern/newpattern/' $file > $file.tmp
mv $file.tmp $file

echo "Done"
done | mail user@mydomain

I'm hoping that this file will search for all files in /root/pete/ which contain "this is string one" and change it to "this is string two".

Unfortunately, I get "line 10: syntax error: unexpected end of file"

Eventually, I need to end up with a script which will search the entire server, for file names, directory names or file contents containing a string and replace it with another string.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

pete

You are missing done and grep strings should be double quoted:

Code:

for pattern in "this is string one" "this is string two"
do
  for file in `find /root/pete/ -exec grep -l "$pattern" {} \;` ; do
   ls -l $file ;
   sed -e 's/$pattern/newpattern/' $file > $file.tmp
   mv $file.tmp $file
   echo "Done"
  done
done | mail user@mydomain

A better way is to use egrep directly on /root/pete/ and put it through via while read .. done loop.

Thanks for that nixcraft, I'm still having problems though.

First question is, is this script going to rewrite every single file in the directory path, regardless of whether the pattern matches?

Second, I corrected the code as you said. This is it now,

Code:

for pattern in "this is string one" "this is string two"
do
   for file in `find /root/pete/test/ -exec grep -l "$pattern" {} \;` ; do
      ls -l $file ;
      sed -e 's/$pattern/newpattern/' $file > $file.tmp
      mv $file.tmp $file
      echo "Done"
   done
done | mail "user@domain"

I also put the sample file with the pattern in it, in a subdirectory one level lower and altered the search path, as I think it was finding this script during the search and was encountering an access denied error when it tried to rewrite it.

It now runs without errors and I get an email at the end, but the sample file doesn't get changed. What am I doing wrong please?

What might be a better solution, is if the script can instead, just provide a list of the files with paths, where the pattern is found. I think it will find around 10 files max.

Thanks,

pete

Change the line:

Code:

sed -e 's/$pattern/newpattern/' $file > $file.tmp

to

Code:

sed -e "s/$pattern/newpattern/" $file > $file.tmp

The single quotes (') wouldn't do variable expansion and hence there would be no replacement. Which is why we need double quotes there (")

Besides, you can also replace:

Code:

sed -e 's/$pattern/newpattern/' $file > $file.tmp
mv $file.tmp $file

with

Code:

sed -i "s/$pattern/newpattern/" $file

which would edit the file itself. You can check the man page for details.


Thanks,
NNS

Thanks for that nnsjunior.

I'm a little closer now! I updated my code and am now using:

Code:

for pattern in "old string" "new string"
do
   for file in `find /root/pete/test/ -exec grep -l "$pattern" {} \;` ; do
      ls -l $file ;
      sed -i "s/$pattern/newpattern/" $file
      echo "Done"
   done
done | mail "peter@domain"

It now does edit the file and it replaced "old string" with "newpattern", but I was kinda hoping that it would replace the old string with "new string". I must have messed up the syntax for accessing the second string in the pattern. What have I done wrong please?

Thanks for your patience.

pete

Then the first for loop is unnecessary. See if this works for you:

Code:

pattern="old string"
newpattern="new string"
for file in `find /root/pete/test/ -exec grep -l "$pattern" {} \;` ; do
      ls -l $file ;
      sed -i "s/$pattern/$newpattern/" $file
      echo "Done"
done | mail "peter@domain"

Thanks,
NNS

NNS, that's done the trick thanks.

I'll have some fun modifying it now. It always helps when you want to learn by modifying a script, if you can start out with a working one!

Cheers.

peter