script to strip headers from files

[ianf]

Hi,
First post to this forum, not a natural born programmer !(but trying hard)

I have a number of different files generated various unix level and db level diagnostics. I want to run a cron job that periodically adds to the end of these files up to a maximum file size and from there does a round-robin, deleting the overspill.

The aim of the game is to produce performance stats that can be graphed over time to track down a bottleneck.

I know a very little scripting. I have the commands that I want to run and at the minute I have them outputting to single files which are then tar.gzipped with the date as a filename suffix to identify them.

I know the number of lines from each command output that need to be stripped.

From what I understand awk is probably the way to strip the headers before catting to the existing files. Is this right ? If so, how do I do this ?

(any hints on the round-robin are also very gratefully recieved !)

Many Thanks in advance
Ian

"IF" is not a word it's a way of life

 

[marsd]

If there is not an arbitrary limit to the
header length then you can use awk or sed.
A sample file would be helpful.

Otherwise if the same number of lines from each file needs to saved, minus the header
then a head or tail (-n??) will do the job
more easily.