Question

I am writing a shell script that outputs selected MySql table data as an exercise. Searches using my key words turn up only how to print out an entire MySql table, doing this in a different language and irrelevant questions.

My questions:

1) If possible, how do I reference individual attributes of a certain row from the results (like iterating when through rows with PHP results)?

2) Which of the two ways below, if either, makes the most sense for this purpose? Neither works quite the way I would like at the moment.

---

MYSQL="mysql -u$db_user -p$db_passwd $db_name -Nbe"

A)

RESULT=`$MYSQL "select * from $table_name where can_auto_check='yes';"`
for UNIQUEID in $RESULT
do
    echo "selected: $client $desc "
    someFunction $client $anothervariable
done

B)

$MYSQL "select * from $table_name where can_auto_check='yes';" \
| while read client anothervariable;
do
    echo "selected: $client $desc "
    someFunction $client $anothervariable
done

---

It is possible I am wording my searches incorrectly; if that is the case, I would appreciate if someone would nudge me in the right direction.

Thank you.

EDIT: possible lead.. something to do with awk ‘{print $1″ “$2 }’ maybe. but for every line.

Final format = ” mkdir -p /net/$SERVER/$CLIENT/$DESC/someFiles “

Answer 1

Not bad, but less code means fewer chances for errors. Unfortunately, I can’t test my edit, as I don’t have mySQL available. Hopefully you’ll get the idea. (or others are welcome to test and edit this post).

# unless you need to use ALL_CLIENTS and DESC_FOR_CLIENT later.
#hidden ALL_CLIENTS=

for CLIENT in $($MYSQL "select distinct client from $table_name where can_auto_check='yes'")
do
    #hidden DESC_FOR_CLIENT=
    for DESC in $($MYSQL  "select desc from $table_name where client='$CLIENT'")
    do
         someFunction $CLIENT $DESC
    done
done

If any of your values for CLIENT or DESC_FOR_CLIENT windup having spaces in them, you will need to quote your usage values like "$CLIENT" .

One other note: back-ticks for command substitution have been deprecated since at least 1995 (unless you’re using orginal unix bourne shell or csh, maybe ash, and few other more obscure shell). Bash and ksh no need. use $( .. cmd ...) for your cmd-substitution.

Good luck.