Shell Programming and Scripting

$ echo -n hello > testfile1
$ echo hello > testfile2
$ file=testfile1
$ od -An -tc -j $(( $(ls -l $file  | awk '{print $5}') - 1 )) $file
   o
$ file=testfile2
$ od -An -tc -j $(( $(ls -l $file  | awk '{print $5}') - 1 )) $file
  \n
$

lastchar=`tail -c 1 "${filename}"`
if [ "${lastchar}""X" = "X" ]
then
       echo "Last character is: \\\n"
else
       echo "Last character is: ${lastchar}"
fi

bash-2.03$ lastchar=`tail -c 1 "$filename"`
tail: cannot open input

$ ls -lrt test
-rwxrwxr-x   1 user    sys         1 Jul  5 08:02 test

$ ls -lrt test | | awk '{print $5}'
1
$ od -An -tc -j 0 test
Invalid offset
usage: od [-bcCdDfFoOsSvxX] [-] [file] [offset_string]
       od [-bcCdDfFoOsSvxX] [-t type_string]... [-A address_base] [-j skip] [-N count] [-] [file...]