Expert: Suchitra Joshi - 10/27/2009

Question
QUESTION: Hi! If i want to output information about a file in this format:

-rw------- 1 lczegel users   270 Jan 28  2007 f2.c

how do i do it using echo. i did echo $file and it gives me but in this format:
-rw-------
1
lczegel
users   
270
Jan
28  
2007
f2.c

so how do i get to give me like the first format?

Thank You

ANSWER: Hi Ryan,

I am not sure what is stored in $file. But you can try one of the following and check whether it works

1) echo "$file"

or

2) echo -n $file

Since I do not have Unix setup, I cannot try from my end. If this doesn't work, give me all the details about what is exactly required to be done.

Hope this helps.

Regards

Suchitra

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: what I'm trying to do is write a script that compare the contents of two directories and gives an output in this format:

Files that are in . but not in /home/ryan/folder2
-rw------- 1 lczegel users   270 Jan 28  2007 g2.c
srwx------ 1 lczegel users     0 Jan 28  2007 unix.socket

so How do i write this code?

Thank You


ANSWER: Hi Ryan,

You can use the ls command to display the files in particular directory as follows -

ls -l (This lists files in current directory)
ls -l /home/ryan/folder2 (This lists files in specified directory)

This will display the files with the following fields -

FilePermissions Hardlinks Owner Group Size Date Filename


Hope this solves your problem.

Regards

Suchitra

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thanks. How would i start writing this script?(compare the contents of two directories)

Answer
Hi Ryan,

Sorry for the delay.

You can try creating a script with the following code in it. Let me know if it works or any errors are encountered -

cd .
for file in `ls`
do
 if [ ! -f /home/ryan/folder2/$file ]
 then
    echo "$file"
 fi
done

This will give the files in . which are not present in /home/ryan/folder2 directory.

Hope this helps.

Regards

Suchitra