OnLine-Specific Scripts

Just about every program will use the UNIX utilities to massage data. If you do not have a good background in UNIX, you need to get a few good books on UNIX and work at writing scripts. UNIX scriptwriters tend to develop intimate relations with several of the utilities at the expense of others. I am no exception. I use a lot of awk, grep, sed, and csh concepts. If you have other preferences, feel free to exercise your scriptwriting in the way you feel most comfortable.

With UNIX, there are usually several ways to accomplish a given task, from the most awkward to the most elegant approach. I make no claim as to the elegance of these DBA scripts. If you can modify them and make them prettier, faster, and more elegant, go to it.

All of these scripts and programs were developed "under the gun" as part of real business systems. Often, it is necessary to take shortcuts and to use brute force to accomplish jobs within a given time frame. These scripts are ample proof.

There, I think I've apologized enough for the inelegance.