I have a script that I dont know what it is doing. Can any one tell me what this script is doing? Please? here is the script with the lines numbered.

1 #!usr/bin/ksh
2 date +%m%d%y%H%M >invdte
3 exec <invdte
4 read dte
5 cp /test/appl_from/810S /test/appl_from/810S-$dte.jic
6 cp /test/appl_from/base810S /test/appl_from/A3810S
7 cp /test/appl_from/base810S /test/appl_from/3M810S
8 >810a.wrk
9 sig="XX"
10 A3=" "
11 fil="XX"
12 t=0
13 usxx=0
14 usab=0
15 us3M=0
16 id[300]="end"
17 cat /test/appl_from/810S |tr "|" "11" >810a.wrk
18 exec <810a.wrk
19 while read a b c d e f g h i j
20 do
21 ((t=t+1))
22 if test "$a" = "ENV"
23 then
24 echo "$g $e"
25 if test "$h" = "X12"
26 then sig="$g"
27 fi
28 fi
29 id[$t]="$sig"
30 done
31
32 exec </test/appl_from/810S
33 t=0
34 while read a
35 do
36 ((t=t+1))
37 fil="XX"
38 usxx=1
39 if test ${id[$t]} = "ABBOTT"
40 then fil="A3"
41 usab=1
42 fi
43 if test ${id[$t]} = "3M"
44 then fil="3M"
45 us3m=1
46 fi
47 echo $a >>/test/appl_from/"$fil"810S
48 if test "$fil" = "XX"
49 then
50 echo "cannot assign inv for ${id[$t]}"
51 fi
52 done
53
54 if test $usab = "1"
55 then
56 echo "A3 file exists"
57 fi
58
59 if test "$us3M" = "1"
60 then
61 echo "3M file exists"
62 fi
63 mv /test/appl_from/810S /test/appl_from/810S-"$dte".fil
64 exit

Here you will find what you need.

I am not a unix person, nor do I pretend to be. This was a script that prepares invoices for EDI transmission but it doesnt work. I believe it to be becasue of the first 20 lines but I am not sure what these first 20 lines are doing. Can someone please translate this into english so us non unix users can understand what it is doing? I appreciate any help I can get.
Please.
Thank you.

The script doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me - but here goes:

line 2-4: obtain the current time to use later

line 5: create a copy of /test/appl_from/810S; use the timestamp to distinguish the file name

line 6-7: create two copies of /test/appl_from/base810S

line 8: create an empty file called 810a.wrk

...

line 17: take the file /test/appl_from/810S and replace all "|"s with "1"s; put the result into 810a.wrk

line 19-30: look at each line of 810a.wrk; if it begins with "ENV" and there's "X12" in the 8th field save the 7th field

line 32-52: read every line of /test/appl_from/810S; if the 7th field of that line (as saved before) is "ABBOTT" append that line to the file //test/appl_from/A3810S; if the 7th field is "3M" then append it to /test/appl_from/3M810S

Hope this helps you...

Yes it does help. It does make some sense. thank you for your input. I appreciate it.