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From: rbp@investor.pgh.pa.us (Bob Peirce #305)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.shell
Subject: Re: Problem using multiple 'head' commands in shell script
Keywords: head shell buffering split(1)
Message-ID: <1991Feb4.122652.10724@investor.pgh.pa.us>
Date: 4 Feb 91 12:26:52 GMT
References: <1671@abekrd.UUCP>
Reply-To: rbp@investor.pgh.pa.us (Bob Peirce #305)
Organization: Cookson, Peirce & Co., Pittsburgh, PA
Lines: 26

In article <1671@abekrd.UUCP> garyb@abekrd.UUCP (Gary Bartlett) writes:
>Can someone explain to me what is happening with the following Bourne shell
>script and more importantly how I can get around it:
>
>	cat file | (
>		head -200
>		echo "Line 201 follows"
>		head -200
>		echo "Line 401 follows"
>		cat
>	)
>
>I am trying to use 'head' as a quick way to split up an input stream.  I
>originally used 'read' and an 'expr' counter but this was too slow.
>
>This script loses lines after each 'head'.  eg if file contained a stream of
>numbers, the output would be missing lots of numbers!
>
Why not use

	cat file | split -200
	commands to process x?? files

-- 
Bob Peirce, Pittsburgh, PA				  412-471-5320
...!uunet!pitt!investor!rbp			rbp@investor.pgh.pa.us