mjhjmtu

I'm new to writing scripts in Linux.

I have input texts files where each line carries two strings (file paths) separated by one or more blank spaces.

I am writing an automated script file that passes the file listed in the first string (path), copies that file to the second string (path), and repeat for every line in each input file.

I have the .zip file containing all files listed in the input file.

It looks like this:

/path/to/file.x /different/path/to/file.x
/path/to/file2.x /different/path/to/file2.x

etc.

Where file.x will be passed then copied from the separate .zip file to different path.

Each input file comes with its own .zip, has different number of lines and different paths indicated.

I thought I would try running the script:

~$ ./script.sh files.zip map.txt

then writing for the script:

zipfile = "$1"
map = "$2"
externalprogram "$zipfile" "$map"

while IFS='' read -r line; 
do
 VAR_STR=$line
 aLeng=$#VAR_STR[@]
 IFS=/ read -a arr <<< "$VAR_STR"
 FILE="$arr[$aLeng]-1"

 cp <path to zip file>/$FILE /different/path/
done < "$map"

Obviously, it's fairly complex and I don't know how to pass the second path in the same line as a variable.

Any input is appreciated. thank you.

EDIT: I meant to put map.txt where I mention running the script.
Also, I should have put It's fairly complex to me. A lot of learning in Linux I have to do ^_^

Since your question is an open-ended request for input rather than a specific question, here are some comments.

1. You seem to be under-utilizing the read command. Review the man page documentation and see how you can trivially use it to read multiple fields to unique variables in one go, eg. read path1 path2.


2. Why are you assigning VAR_STR=$line? It seems to me that you could operate directly on $line.


3. Your method of trimming the path out of the second field is clever, but bash and most other shells have a straightforward, simpler, and more efficient method, using the # idiom to remove a prefix pattern from a variable, eg. FILE=$path2##*/. Again, see the man page for documentation of other cool things the shell can do natively very efficiently.


4. Standardize your personal naming convention for bash variables; either make them all lower case or all upper case, but don't mix.


5. Your concluding statement beginning "Obviously..." was not obvious at all to me, in that I have no idea what you mean.