Re: Off Topic: streaming a text file into a command?
On Wed, Oct 11, 2000 at 04:47:28PM -0500, William Jensen wrote:
> Hey guys,
>
> I'm trying to find the fastest mirror site. I am using a package called
> netselect. Works like this netselect -vv host1 host2 ... hostx. Wonderful
> little utility. Anyway, I have a list of mirrors in a text file like this:
>
> host1
> host2
> host3
>
> How can I pump that file into netselect? I tried netselect -vv < file but
> it just laughed at me. :)
probably rolling its eyes as it did so...
short version:
if your text file has one word per line, try this:
netselect -vv `cat my-settings-file`
long version:
if you 'store' the output of a command in a variable,
you get all the tabs, spaces and newlines verbatim.
when you use that as an argument to a command,
*nix scrunches all whitespace into single space
characters, so all the command will 'see' is the
individual words.
for fancier stuff, try
generate-some-list-however-you-like | xargs cmd -options
man xargs for the full poop.
--
things are more like they used to be than they are now.
will@serensoft.com *** http://www.dontUthink.com/
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