The following returns the entire line, I just want one field...

CUT_FIELD=2
RETURN_VALUE=`grep ^${GREP_NAME} $FILE_NAME|cut -f${CUT_FIELD} -d:
`
echo $RETURN_VALUE

data looks like this:

GREP_NAME HELLO GOODBYE 1

In this case I just want to return 'GOODBYE', but in other cases I may
want to return HELLO or 1?

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Ryan Gaffuri wrote:
> The following returns the entire line, I just want one field...
>
> CUT_FIELD=2
> RETURN_VALUE=`grep ^${GREP_NAME} $FILE_NAME|cut -f${CUT_FIELD} -
d:`
> echo $RETURN_VALUE
>
> data looks like this:
>
> GREP_NAME HELLO GOODBYE 1
>
> In this case I just want to return 'GOODBYE', but in other cases I may
> want to return HELLO or 1?

RETURN_VALUE=`awk "/^$GREP_NAME/ { print \$$CUT_FIELD }" "$FILE_NAME"`

Heiner
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/ __| |_ _____ _____ _ _     Heiner STEVEN <heiner.steven@nexgo.de>
\__ \  _/ -_) V / -_) ' \    Shell Script Programmers: visit
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Ryan Gaffuri wrote:
> The following returns the entire line, I just want one field...
>
> CUT_FIELD=2
> RETURN_VALUE=`grep ^${GREP_NAME} $FILE_NAME|cut -f${CUT_FIELD} -
d:`
> echo $RETURN_VALUE
>
> data looks like this:
>
> GREP_NAME HELLO GOODBYE 1

The fields are separated by whitespace but the in the variable
RETURN_VALUE you specify a colon as the separator (option "-d:").
Change this to "-d ' '" and it should work.

Regards
Matthias

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