Use column data in text file as arguments to command

[phurtt]

I have a file, we'll call it text.out. It looks like this:

aaa bb1
ccc bb2
ddd bb3
eee bb4
...etc, etc

I have to be able to pass the information from the first line "aaa" and "bbb" to a single command. For instance, the final command should look something like:

copy "aaa" to "bb1" and call it "bb2, or bb3, or bb4"

This is a very simplistic explanation, but if somebody could clue me in, I could translate it into the real situation. I guess my sticking point is being able to take the first two fields out of the test file, and parse them into a command line.

Also, as an extra twist, the third column can contain a possibility of only 4 combinations. The first combination used (bb1) cannot be the same as the second (bb2, bb3, bb4).

Thanks a bunch!

 

[marsd]

Here's an example with an echo and appending
and adding some little tweaks, a hyphen for shell
getopts type stuff, and a calculated extra int
tagged to the end of the string.

awk ' {
cmd = "echo " $1 " -" $2 dest
dest = substr($2,4,4) ; dest += dest
system(command)
}' text.out

Hope this is what you wanted. Should work fine with
cp.

 

[marsd]

Oops. should be system(cmd).