Question

So I have this spool file having this kind of content.

SQL> select file_name from dev_files;

FILE_NAME
------------------------------------------------------------------
file1.txt
file2.doc
file3.pdf
total.xls

4 rows selected.

SQL> spool off

I am writing a ksh script to load these files into a ftp server and update a log file. and I am stuck up bigtime. Here is the portion of my poor code after many tries.

dump="spoolfile.txt"

while read line;
do

if [[`expr match "$line" 'SQL'` !=3]] && [[`expr match "$line" 'FILE_NAME'` !=9]] && [[`expr match "$line" '---------'` !=9]]
then
    ftp -inv $tgt_server <<EOT
    quote user $uname
    quote password $pword
    mput $src_path/$line
    quit
    EOT

    echo "sent $line" >> sent_files.log
fi
done < $dump

how do i ensure that “no rows selected” and say “4 rows selected.” are not read? there can be any number instead of 4 corresponding to number of files. In the case of no files the spool file looks like this. the ‘.’ is also missing.

SQL> select file_name from dev_files;

no rows selected

SQL> spool off

Answer 1

I agree with most of the comments about ‘turn off headings’ etc in the SQLPlus,

but this is Easy Peasy 😉

while read line;
do
   case ${line} in 
     -------* ) continue ;;
     FILE_NAME ) continue ;;
     SQL[>] ) continue ;;
     *rows\ selected ) continue ;;
   esac 

   # with enough case match targets, you can probably eliminate
   # the if/fi completely. Good luck.
   if [[`expr match "$line" 'SQL'` !=3]] .....
   ftp ...
   fi
done < $dump

You’ll have to experiment with what values to put in the case statement to clean it up completely.

Also note that for any unusual characters, like ‘>’, it is probably better to include them as a character class [>] (again requiring some experimentation on your part)

And finally, note that if you want to include white-space chars in the case match targets, either surround the phrase in dbl-quotes (“) or escape each WS char like ‘\’.