From: James Pifer <jep at obrien-pifer.com> > I have a long file that has lines like this: > some text > some text2 > CN=DATA.OU=XYZ.O=CO > some text3 > some text4 > > I need to change the middle line but leave the rest of the file as is > like this: > some text > some text2 > CN=XYZ_DATA.OU=XYZ.O=CO > some text3 > some text4 IFS="."; cat file | while read L; do set $L; if [ "$1" = "CN=DATA" ]; then P1=${1#CN=}; P2=${2#OU=}; echo "CN=${P2}_$P1.$2.$3"; else echo $*; fi; done JD