Shell Programming and Scripting

Hi,

I'm trying to populate bash script variable, data_size with the
size of the largest file in my current directory

data_size=$(ls -lS | grep -v "total" | head -1) | awk '{ print $5 }'

I've tried adding an echo before the call to awk

data_size=$(ls -l | grep -v "total" | head -1) | echo | awk '{ print $5 }'

data_size is echoed as blank.
Appreciate any help that is offered.
Thanks

Code:

(08:28:29\[D@DeCoWork15)
[~]$ data_size=$(ls -lS | grep -v "total" | head -1 | awk '{ print $5 }')

(08:28:37\[D@DeCoWork15)
[~]$ echo $data_size
6671723580

Just put the closing parentheses out side of the awk statement. Remember, you're setting the value of the variable to everything between the two parentheses.

Thanks, typo on my part - I'd better start using vim instead of vi ...

---------- Post updated at 07:48 AM ---------- Previous update was at 07:37 AM ----------

Is it also possible to extract an array value, which consists of multiple space delimited alphanumeric fields (eg '1 abcd efdg')
using something like the following (from within a loop which cycles thro' data_array):

data_id=$(${data_array[$element2]}|awk '{print $1}')

or

data_id=$(${data_array[$element2]}|echo|awk '{print $1}')

(Both don't work)