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[previous article] [next article]Stacey Clark
Did you know that the Stores catalog information is now on the ECN? You may access the file /usr/ecn/pub/stores to get Stores inventory numbers and prices. While your business office must process order forms, this on-line information makes it possible for you to review what is available and obtain the correct inventory number.
Rather than paging through the file screen by screen, an easier mechanism is to grab information out of the file with the grep command (type "man grep" for more information). Use the grep command with the -i flag to ignore upper and lower case differences:
% grep -i item /usr/ecn/pub/stores | more
where "item" is whatever you are looking for in the catalog (for example: potassium, paper, etc.). The search will show the store location/inventory number, description, unit and price. The following is an example.
% grep -i fortran /usr/ecn/pub/stores 0009951100;MICROSOFT FORTRAN;EACH;235.16 0009951190;MS FORTRAN ACAD 3.5;EACH;62.12 0009951195;MS FORTRAN ACAD 5.25;EACH;64.62
Janet Lange in Engineering Administration says that the first two digits signify the Stores location:
General 00 Chemistry 01
Biology 02 Physical Facility 03
Postal 04 Physics 05 Pharmacy 08 Military Stores 09
If you wish to search for a multiple word item, such as "lab coat", you can type:
% grep -i lab.coat /usr/ecn/pub/stores
or you can enclose the words in quotes, like:
% grep -i "lab coat" /usr/ecn/pub/stores
Note that the descriptions have been truncated to 20 characters. Also, sometimes the Stores system uses "odd" names for things; for example, light bulbs are listed as "lamps."
Janet plans on updating the file quarterly. If you need to know how current the information is, you can look at the date the file was last updated by typing
% ls -l /usr/ecn/pub/stores -rw-r--r-- 1 1021 672984 Oct 30 13:20 /usr/ecn/pub/stores
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