What if Grep returns no results

[Trancemission]

I have a simple script which searches a file for a Customer name, then exports the corrosponding number on that line. The problem I am faced with is that some customers may not be in the file. In that case I want to export a default number.

Extract of Script:

grep $compname $TMPPATH/customers | awk '{print $2}' > $TMPPATH/number

>$compname is the company name

Contents of customers:

CUST1 45
CUST2 46
CUST8 145
etc.....

Many Thanks

 

[KenCunningham]

Sounds like you need an if then else construct, something like:

if [ $? > 0 ]
then
<your default number export>
else
<your awk statement>
fi

The $? returns the exit value of the grep (0 if successful, 1 otherwise). Hope this helps.

 

[aigles]

You can modify the awk command to print the default value if the input is empty (compname not found by grep) :

grep $compname $TMPPATH/customers | awk -v Def=111 '{print $2} END {if (NR==0) print Def}' > $TMPPATH/number

In this example, the default value is 111.
Jean Pierre.