Renaming or making filenames unique

Question

I have written a plsql procedure using utl file to create files in the temp directory in Unix.

I am sending the names of the files to a shell script to mail these files and delete after mailing from temp directory, it is working good but when two people running the same request with the same files, the files are replaced and deleted by the first program and the second program not having any files in the directory to mail.

I decided to create file names_request_id to make file names unique, but my actual requirement is to get the files with the same name with out request_id to person who is receiving email.

I created Incompatibility for the program with the same program but they want me to take away the incompatibility to save time.

What other options do I have?

For your reference i copied my whole shell script and added ####### symbol to denote the location of the code to be modified.

The files are moved to the created directory and the file names have reuest_id-filename.extension so that request_id and the '-' must be removed and the actual filename should be there. name of the file in the database: 23456663-abcd.pdf required name of the filename : abcd.pdf

param=`echo $*`
#getting input values
echo "params : $param"

v_temp=`echo $param  | cut -d '"' -f 1 `
v_temp=`echo $v_temp | cut -d '=' -f 2 `
v_temp=`echo $v_temp | cut -d ' ' -f 1 `
#now v_temp has the request_id
v_temp=MUILT_EMAIL3-$v_temp

echo "temp file is : $v_temp"


#split the parameter string with " as seperator
v_email_list=`echo $param | cut -d '"' -f 8 `
v_file_list=`echo $param | cut -d '"' -f 10 `
v_subject=`echo $param | cut -d '"' -f 12 `
v_mail_content=`echo $param | cut -d '"' -f 14 `
v_reply_to=`echo $param | cut -d '"' -f 16 `
v_delete_attachment_files=`echo "$1"|cut -d'"' -f18`
v_outputfile_path=`echo "$1"|cut -d'"' -f20`
v_outputfile=`echo "$1"|cut -d'"' -f22`
v_request_id=`echo "$1"|cut -d'"' -f24`
#v_rename_file=`echo $param | cut -d '"' -f 24 `
echo "email list :" $v_email_list
echo "file list :" $v_file_list
echo "subject :" $v_subject
echo "mail_content :" $v_mail_content
echo "reply_to :" $v_reply_to
echo "delete_attachment_files :" $v_delete_attachment_files
echo "outputfile_path :" $v_outputfile_path
echo "outputfile :" $v_outputfile
echo "request_id :" $v_request_id

v_email_list=`echo $v_email_list |tr ";" " "`
v_file_list=`echo $v_file_list |tr ";" " "`

pwd
cd /


mkdir /tmp/$v_request_id
cp $v_outputfile_path /tmp/$v_request_id/$v_outputfile

mv /tmp/$v_request_id* /tmp/$v_request_id/ 
cd /tmp/$v_request_id/

###### this is the place i need to rename the files that are moved to a request_id dir
################# mv -- "34178248-2640006.pdf" "${34178248-2640006.pdf}" 


v_mail_content =`basename $v_mail_content`
cat $v_mail_content > /tmp/${v_temp}.tmp


echo "File List : $v_file_list"

for i in ${v_file_list}; do
    echo "File to attach before parsing $i"
    v_attachment_name=`echo $i |awk '{ if ( index($1,":")> 0) { print substr($1,index($1,":")+1) } }'`
    v_attachment_file=`echo $i |awk '{ if ( index($1,":")> 0) { print substr($1,1,index($1,":")-1) } }'`

    echo "Checking attachment name after parse :"$v_attachment_name
    if [ "$v_attachment_name" = '' ]
      then
      v_attachment_name=`basename $i`
      v_attachment_file=$i
      echo "base name is " $v_attachment_name
    fi

    /usr/bin/uuencode $v_attachment_file $v_attachment_name >> /tmp/${v_temp}.tmp
done
echo "Loop done"

if [ "${v_reply_to}" = '' ]
  then
  mailx -s "${v_subject}" "${v_email_list}" < /tmp/${v_temp}.tmp
#echo "something" | mailx -s "${v_subject}" ${v_email_list} < /tmp/${v_temp}.tmp
else
  mailx -r "${v_reply_to}" -s "${v_subject}" "${v_email_list}" < /tmp/${v_temp}.tmp
#echo "something" | mailx -r "${v_reply_to}" -s "${v_subject}" ${v_email_list} < /tmp/${v_temp}.tmp
fi

echo "mailing done"

#delete the temporary files
  echo "deleting file /tmp/${v_temp}.tmp"
rm /tmp/${v_temp}.tmp


if [ "${v_delete_attachment_files}" = 'Y' ]
  then
    echo "deleting attached files -start "
    #Loop through to identify all the attachments and delete
    for i in ${v_file_list}; do
        echo $i
        v_attachment_name=`echo $i |awk '{ if ( index($1,":")> 0) { print substr($1,index($1,":")+1) } }'`
        v_attachment_file=`echo $i |awk '{ if ( index($1,":")> 0) { print substr($1,1,index($1,":")-1) } }'`

        echo "Check :"$v_attachment_name
        if [ "$v_attachment_name" = '' ]
          then
          v_attachment_name=`basename $i`
          v_attachment_file=$i
          echo "base name is " $v_attachment_name
        fi

        echo "deleting file $v_attachment_file"
        rm $v_attachment_file
    done
    #End Loop through to identify all the attachments and delete
fi

echo "rm done"

Answer 1

An alternate solution would be to create a temporary directory based on the process ID of the request, dump the files to that directory (perhaps via a cd command before generating the files?), then mail them from there. That way, the second job, with a different PID, would be operating in a different directory. I'm not sure how that would play out with the SQL bits, but that's where I would start my attack from.

Answer 2

If you're just looking to create a uniquely named temporary file and/or directory you can use the mktemp command in your script.

To create a randomly named file and/or directory:

# file
$ mktemp
/tmp/tmp.4t0pSU5g3i

$  ls -l /tmp/tmp.4t0pSU5g3i
-rw------- 1 root root 0 Jul  3 11:05 /tmp/tmp.4t0pSU5g3i

# directory
$ mktemp -d
/tmp/tmp.WixJWjOPBb

$ ls -ld /tmp/tmp.WixJWjOPBb
drwx------ 2 root root 4096 Jul  3 11:04 /tmp/tmp.WixJWjOPBb

If you'd like it to only suggest a name without actually doing the creation you can pass it the --dry-run or -u switch.

References

• mktemp man page
• Shell scripting (BASH) : How to create temporary random file name

Answer 3

Changing my answer as per update of the question.

If you just want to change the filenames then a simple way would be this:

filelist=`ls *.pdf`
for i in $filelist
do
    mv $i `echo $i|cut -d "-" -f 2`
done 

From what I understood you have a list of files, as such, just iterate this part to remove the requestid from the beginning of the name.