How do I preserve spaces in a KornShell script when using backlinks?
I am working on a script in KornShell (ksh). The connection to my database is through SQLPLUS to the Oracle 9i database. I didn't have any problem getting DB values in shell variables, EXCEPT, that any consecutive spaces are automatically truncated by only one character.
Here's an example of my code:
MY_VAR=`sqlplus -s usr/pass@db << !
set heading off;
set pagesize 0;
select a_value from a_table where an_index = 25;
!`
The actual data in the database is as follows:
Dec 15 09:19:10 <24:0070> User record (5 XATY 41839FG8 58775HK9AFF) is invalid for this condition
My example code above returns it like this:
Dec 15 09:19:10 <24:0070> User record (5 XATY 41839FG8 58775HK9AFF) is invalid for this condition
Spacing is critical to what I work with.
Thank you in advance for your help.
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First of all, don't use backlinks, they are deprecated in "The New Kornshell Programming Language" published in 1995! Instead, use the simplified command substitution version $( yourCmd goes here)
.
You are not showing us how you use the $ MY_VAR variable. If you say
echo $MY_VAR > outputFile
You need to specify a variable i.e.
print -- "$MY_VAR" > outputFile
Print
is ksh major-upgrade on echo, but it's better to get in the habit of using '-' between the command and the lines you want Print
. Any '-' char in the string that you want to print can issue a noguarded (i.e. No '-') command Print
to loop.
You may also need to specify the assignment MY_VAR, i.e.
MY_VAR="$(sqlplus -s usr/pass@db <<-EOD
set heading off;
set pagesize 0;
select a_value from a_table where an_index = 25;
EOD
)"
I switched to EOD like! char is used by many shells for type notation! $ (last word of previous line) so why confuse things.
Note to the future: There is a tag for ksh that you can use here on StackOverflow. Shell is ambiguous and can mean Windows cmd.com as well as zsh.
Hope this helps.
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