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From: ronald@robobar.co.uk (Ronald S H Khoo)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.shell
Subject: Re: for loops
Message-ID: <1991Apr7.125534.20656@robobar.co.uk>
Date: 7 Apr 91 12:55:34 GMT
References: <3693@ux.acs.umn.edu> <1991Apr3.213023.23397@athena.mit.edu> <rich.670890780@pencil>
Organization: Robobar Ltd., Perivale, Middx., ENGLAND.
Lines: 20

rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu (Rich Winkel) writes:

> 	FILES=10
> 	for i in `head -$FILES /usr/dict/words`

Hee hee.  Neat hack.  I got a feeling that my boss would be very unhappy if
I used that in production code though :-)  But I like it.
 
> I guess someone's going to tell me now that 'head' isn't standard unix?

Yes, but unless you're head'ing more than one file, sed <n>q is the same
as head -n, so you could have avoided the use of that disclaimer, had
you said:

 	for i in `sed ${FILES}q /usr/dict/words`

Also, if no shell variables are involved, sed 10q is less to type than
head -10 :-)
-- 
Ronald Khoo <ronald@robobar.co.uk> +44 81 991 1142 (O) +44 71 229 7741 (H)