Hi guys. My first post, so be gentle...
On my Solaris 10 machine vnc server is running. I need a command to extract most recent client session number (screen). So with:
Code:

bash-3.2# ps -ef | grep vnc | grep Xaut
    root 19805 19797   0 15:41:44 ?           0:01 Xvnc :4 -inetd -once -securitytypes=none -desktop Infinera DNA -auth //.Xauthor
    root 19785 19777   0 15:41:24 ?           0:01 Xvnc :3 -inetd -once -securitytypes=none -desktop Infinera DNA -auth //.Xauthor
    root 19765 19757   0 15:41:00 ?           0:01 Xvnc :2 -inetd -once -securitytypes=none -desktop Infinera DNA -auth //.Xauthor

bash-3.2# ps -ef | grep vnc | grep Xau| sort -k4 | tail -1 | awk '{print $9}' | tr -d ':'
4

#!/bin/sh

[ -r $HOME/.Xresources ] && xrdb $HOME/.Xresources
xsetroot -solid grey
twm &
firefox -P vnc$(ps -ef | grep vnc | grep Xau| sort -k4 | tail -1 | awk '{print $9}' | tr -d ':') &

  //.vnc/xstartup: syntax error at line 6: `)' unexpected

Use #!/bin/bash instead of #!/bin/sh .

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Thank You.

The UNIX and Linux Forums

When you type that code into your terminal, you are using bash.

When you run that from a script, you are using /bin/sh, which may be something totally different, something that doesn't understand $( ) syntax, only backticks ` `.

Many thanks guys. Now it looks so obvious, but I would've never thought of it myself.

(The other posters have diagnosed this problem correctly).
On Solaris 10 the /bin/sh is the original Bourne Shell which does not recognise many of the Shell extensions which are available in bash and ksh . On other modern unix Operating Systems you can find that /bin/sh is actually the Posix Shell or on many Linux systems it is bash.