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#1
04-07-2012
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Strings comparing incorrectly
Hello I'm very new to Linux and shell scripting so I only know basic stuff. I'm making a script with the purpose of finding the longest string or word in a file. Here's what I got so far: Code:
#!/bin/bash longest="" for i in $(strings -n $1); do if [[ $longest < $i ]] then longest=$i fi done echo $longest So basically the script will use a file given in the command line which contains words and then return the longest one. This is the file I'm using to test it out it's called test: Code:
apples are the best in the world now I run it with bash -x script2 test so I can see what's happening and this is what I get: Code:
+ longest= ++ strings -n 1 test + for i in '$(strings -n 1 $1)' + [[ '' < apples ]] + longest=apples + for i in '$(strings -n 1 $1)' + [[ apples < are ]] + longest=are + for i in '$(strings -n 1 $1)' + [[ are < the ]] + longest=the + for i in '$(strings -n 1 $1)' + [[ the < best ]] + for i in '$(strings -n 1 $1)' + [[ the < in ]] + for i in '$(strings -n 1 $1)' + [[ the < the ]] + for i in '$(strings -n 1 $1)' + [[ the < world ]] + longest=world + echo world world So by the looks of it it's just replacing the value of the current word with the next one. So my question is how can I accurately compare the words so it returns the longest one? I'm guessing my mistake is in this line: Code:
if [[ $longest < $i ]]
Last edited by Scrutinizer; 04-08-2012 at 12:45 AM.. |
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#2
04-07-2012
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Code:
#! /bin/bash
longest=""
charCount=0
while read x
do
if [ $charCount -lt ${#x} ]
then
charCount=${#x}
longest=$x
fi
done < $1
echo "Longest Word: $longest; Number of Chars: $charCount" |
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#4
04-08-2012
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Minor nitpick: Code:
done < "$1" Otherwise it will break for filenames with spaces or strange characters.. Quote:
 Code:
$ [[ "bbb" < "aaaa" ]] && echo hello $ [[ " bbb" < "aaaa" ]] && echo hello hello Last edited by Scrutinizer; 04-08-2012 at 02:13 AM.. |
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#5
04-08-2012
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Works like a charm now. Thank you for the help
 , didn't know it would be so much easier using a while loop. |
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