Shell Programming and Scripting

Five files? Do you call it like this

Code:

...
' $(ls -drS test[1-5])

What does

Code:

ls -drS test[1-5]

produce?

I have call it '$(ls -drS test*). Though with modification i have able to pull it off. But a new problem has occured now. it showing the below error:

awk: Format item %s cannot be longer than 3,000 bytes.

I know awk cannot read more than 3000 byte. Can this be rectify some how?

Please get used to post the context of the error producing code.

Without seeing what script/code you ran we can only guess that there's a quote or a comma missing in a printf statement.

This is what I am using :

Code:

awk '
  BEGIN {
    n=4
    m=1
  }
  FNR==1 {
    if(NR>1) {
      A[m]+=sz
      f="outfile" m
      printf "%s",s>f
      m=1
      for(i=2; i<=n; i++)
        if(A[m]>A[i])
          m=i
      s=x
      sz=0
    }
  }
  {
    s=s $0 ORS 
    sz+=length
  }
  END {
    if(NR>1)printf "%s",s>f
  }
' $(ls -dr sample*)

Can any one help?

Scrutinizer's code (and your modification of it) are reading files into memory line by line but writing entire input files with one printf statement. For any input file larger than 3000 (or whatever your system's size limit is, if it has a limit) bytes, the writes will fail.

That can be fixed by copying a line at a time from an input file to an output file as you read each instead of copying entire input files in single printf calls.

But, to even out the four output file sizes (which you said was a primary goal), Scrutinizer's code depends on copying the largest remaining input file to an output file first. Your modification to Scrutinizer's code (sorting files by reverse alphabetical filename instead of sorting by decreasing file size) will not meet you goal of producing similar sized files unless all of your input files are about the same size. You said:
How did changing:

Code:

$(ls -drS file*)

to:

Code:

$(ls -dr file*)

enable you to "pull it off"? I don't see why this change would have any effect on getting the error you're seeing. Did I miss some other change you made to Scrutinizer's suggested code?

Changing Scrutinizer's code to copy a line at a time instead of a file at a time is pretty straightforward. But, doing that without understanding why you found sorting by name instead of sorting by size necessary would be a waste of time. What additional constraint is there that you haven't explained to us that requires a different order of input files in the merged output files?

I addition to what Don Cragun said, try this modification:

Code:

awk '
  BEGIN {
    n=4
    m=1
  }
  FNR==1 {
    if(NR>1) {
      A[m]+=sz
      f="outfile" m
      print s>f
      m=1
      for(i=2; i<=n; i++)
        if(A[m]>A[i])
          m=i
      s=x
      sz=0
    }
  }
  {
    s=s (FNR>1?ORS:x) $0 
    sz+=length
  }
  END {
    if(NR>1)print s>f
  }
' $(ls -drS file*)

I think the 3000 byte limit is specific for the printf statement in certain awk implementations (HPUX?)