Subj : Running a command dynamically in a script
To   : comp.os.linux
From : steve_roach
Date : Fri Jul 09 2004 01:06 am

Hi folks,

I am trying to do a bit of shell scripting along these lines...

....
# Get something from a file. The 'something' could be - ps > a_file
# It is structured: 
# <Data>
# <ProcessInstanceId>68<\ProcessInstanceId>
# <CallText>ps > /home/nwsupp/t003380/dev/omd/test.out<\CallText>
#<\Data>
call_text=`grep CallText $log | cut -c11- | cut -d'<\CallText>' -f1`

# This grabs: ps > /home/nwsupp/t003380/dev/omd/test.out into
call_text

# As the 'something' is a command, execute it.
$call_text

# See how it did.
status=$?

# And tell us about it.
echoStatus=$?
....

There are a couple of problems with this:

- 'ps' executes but does not redirect the output to a_file
- Quite possibly because of this, when a_file can't be written to
(maybe the
  target directory is owned by someone else), the status is 0 when it,
in
  fact, failed.

Of course, a possibility would be to shove the command into a file and
execute that but I'd rather do it this way if possible.

Any ideas?

Cheers

Steve

.