Donna Garverick wrote:
> i've got a simple little text file with two pieces of
> information on each record.  the first 'word' (piece of
> information) could be considered as a key value.  that is --
> another process will be examining this file looking for a
> match on the first field.  (and btw, since i know the
> data....most of the time the match will fail....).  if a
> match is found, i need the 2nd 'word' (piece of information)
> placed into a ci variable.  sound rather simple....except
> that last piece -- getting the information from the file
> into a variable.

The POSIX join program might be useful here; see "man join" for details:

INVENT3K:/BIXBY/PUB/demo/join$ cat datafile
1 one
2 two
3 three
INVENT3K:/BIXBY/PUB/demo/join$ cat doit
#!/bin/sh

KEY=2

callci setvar value "'$(echo $KEY | join -o 2.2 - datafile)'"
callci showvar value
INVENT3K:/BIXBY/PUB/demo/join$ doit
VALUE = two
--
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