hello every one
I have a problem that drove me crazy last couple days I know I have to use loop structures but I can't figure out how to put the right pieces together. I'm not asking for a complete answer because I want to learn so please help me out
The problem says
write a shell script that will take the information from two files and combine into another file
I created both files in vi and they are




file1
David 734.854.5643
Roberto 313.432.4532
Sally 267.423.5412
Mary 435.432.7654
Ted 324.642.6743
Alice 234.576.3245
Frank 342.465.6754





and the second file is


file2
Roberto Tuesday 2
Sally Monday 8
Ted Sunday 16
Alice Wednesday 23
David Thursday 10
Mary Saturday 14
Frank Friday 15




The output file should be like this:
Name----------------On-Call--------------------Phone------------------Start Time
Sally---------------- Monday ---------------267.423.5412-----------------8am
Roberto-------------Tuesday---------------313.432.4532-----------------2am
Alice---------------Wednesday-------------234.576.3245----------------11pm
David---------------Thursday---------------734.854.5643----------------10am
Frank----------------Friday------------------342.465.6754----------------3pm
Mary---------------Saturday-----------------435.432.7654----------------2pm
Ted-----------------Sunday------------------324.642.6743-----------------4pm





I noticed right away that there is a common thing between the two files (the name), and I thought i could use for loop to cut pieces using the day of the week because I have to sorted in a specific order starting from Monday so I thought this loop might work:



for day in Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
do
grep $day file2
Done



I know it is not complete but I just wanted you to know how I should do the sort. And there is another problem which is the time. in the file is in 24 hours format i have to convert it to 12 hours format.
And that is it for now I want you guys just to tell me how to start and how to put the pieces together.
your help us appreciated
Thank you very much

So the output of line "grep $day file2" is
"Sally Monday 8"
If you read that line as Name Day start,
you can grep $name in file1 and get the telephone number which you can then print.
However, this technique would not work for a large file, as both file1 and file2 are completely read 7 times, and sure enough as you get bigger there will be two people working on the same day, and there will be Frank A. and Frank M., or Ann and Anna.

The problem that you have stated by the way is the core issue that this forum tries to solve.
Consider setting up 7 directories (Monday thru Sunday) and removing the day from file2 and having a file named Sally containing the value 8 in the Monday directory.
so now your have:
Monday/Sally
Tuesday/Roberto
etc
Now you can change "grep Monday file2"
to
"ls Monday"
and the output is only those scheduled for Monday. You can then "cat Monday/Sally" to get the start time.
Going a step further, create directories for each person (eliminating file1) and each person's directory contains a file named phone that has the phone number as its contents.

As far as the time goes, use an if..else construct.
if $time > 12
then
print $time - 12 'pm'
else
print $time 'am'
fi
You will have to add additional code if you have shifts starting at noon and midnight.

I didn't understand what you mean do i have to use 2 loops while and for, or nested loops?

Thanks

Something like this:
I'll leave you to figure out how to do it without temp.file and temp1.file

Ok guys I made the script working but there is one last problem which is the AM and PM

I coded the following if statement:


if [ $Start -gt 12 ]
then
Start=`expr $Start -12` "PM"
else
Start=$start"AM"
fi

but it still gives me an error in this line: Start=`expr $Start -12` "PM"



any suggestions?


Thank you

Spaces are important in expr. There must be a space before and after each operator.
Start=`expr $start - 12`
not
Start=`expr $start-12`
or Start=`expr $start -12`

Will you post your solution, after you have submitted it?