I have a file with names in it lets call it a testfile.txt.

1. I want to make sure all the names are lowercase, so I was going to do this,
tr '[A-Z]' '[a-z]' testfile.txt > lowerfile.txt

2. I wanted to add a *, to the front of each name and a ,*,* to the end of each name and I was able to do this by this line command,
cat lowerfile.txt | xargs -iz eacho "*," "Z" ",*,*" > newfile.out

3. I wanted to name newfile.out to test(next number available).out like test1.out, test2.out what ever the next available number is and echo the output file is .out 

Solution:

Creating a file to test:

# cat > testfile.txt
Name1
NaME2
NamE3
nAmE4

Converting upper to lower:

# cat testfile.txt | tr -s '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]' > lowerfile.txt
 

Adding * to the front and ,*,* to the end and create test.. out file

# while read line
do
echo "* $line ,*,*" >> newfile.out
done < lowerfile.txt

last_file_number=`ls -1 test*.out | sort | tail -1 | cut -c 5`
next_file_number=` expr $last_file_number + 1 `
mv newfile.out test${next_file_number}.out

exit 0
 

Note:

Prepending an * to a file name is a rather silly thing to do, particularly in Unix.

Have a Unix Problem
Unix Forum - Do you have a UNIX Question?

Unix Books :-
UNIX Programming, Certification, System Administration, Performance Tuning Reference Books

Return to : - Unix System Administration Hints and Tips