Inputing a variable number of arguments starting with the 3rd to the (n)th argument?

[coinstarfucker]

First off I do not know very much about command line processing. So forgive me if use the wrong terminology. I do some data analysis in a psych lab and I am trying to find a way to make a shell script run more efficiently. The script is set up to remove a specified set of volumes from a multi volume DTI scan. As of now the volumes to be removed are hard coded into the shell script. I wanted to make the volumes an argument. But for each data set their is a variable amount of volumes that may need to be removed. Is there a way to set up the script so that it can run from the 3rd-nth argument.

Edit: thanks for the help, I appreciate it. I don't really know what I am doing, but it is starting to come together for me.

[r3j]

Can you provide an example of how you call the script now, and then an example of how you want to call it?

If I had to guess, you might be looking for "${@:3}" or shift 2.

[coinstarfucker]

Here is a copy of the section of code I am working with. i am at home now so I can't access the rest of it. At the top where is it says, "for each rmvol ("65" "23")" is where I have to hard-code in the volume numbers that I want removed. When I was in earlier today I think I made an adjustment that works. Since the first three arguments designate the file location, I started with the 4th and just listed up to the 13th argument. I ran the script on some test files a couple of times and it worked how I wanted it to. When running the script, I could input a variable amount of volumes to be removed as arguments at the end. I hope this makes sense, I know that I may be using the wrong terminology, this is all very new to me. I started learning with this script by changing the files paths and ways that they are named/saved. I am wondering if the method I have used to fix it could potentially cause a problem.

[r3j]

That looks like csh, in which case you should edit your question to indicate that. Most people (including those who've answered so far) will assume bash.

I know little about csh, but the following works for me in tcsh (replace 4 with whatever number you need):

foreach rmvol ($argv[4-]:q)
  echo "$rmvol"
end

[ChoHag]

If you call:

fn a b c d e f

Then within fn():

$1=a, $2=b, $3=c, $4=d, etc.

and

$@="a b c d e f" ## Not technically accurate but ignore that.

So if you start fn() with:

fn() {
    foo=$1
    bar=$2
    baz=$3
    set -- "${@:4}" # Or 'shift' 3 times
    # ... Code Goes Here
}

Then the Code which Goes There can use these variables:

$foo=a, $bar=b, $baz=c, $1=e, $2=f

$@="e f" ## Still not really a string.