UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users

listDir(){
...
...
return a; # a is an array
}

set -A arr1 $(listDir $dir1 $limit1)    #limit is the tail limit of ls -lrt
set -A arr2 $(listDir $dir2 $limit2)
set -A arr3 $(listDir $dir3 $limit3)

$ cat ArrTest
GetDir() {
  cd $2
  ls -ltr | tail -$3 | while read FILE; do
    eval $1[\${#$1[@]}]="\$FILE"
  done
  cd - > /dev/null
}

# GetDir $1 is new array name, $2 is directory, $3 is the value for tail
GetDir A /tmp 5
echo A[0] is ${A[0]}
echo A[1] is ${A[1]}
echo
GetDir B /Users/scott 3
echo B[0] is ${B[0]}
echo B[1] is ${B[1]}


$ ./ArrTest
A[0] is drwx------ 3 scott wheel 102 5 Mar 20:49 launch-7Y8JI8
A[1] is drwx------ 3 scott wheel 102 5 Mar 20:49 launch-3RaSBo

B[0] is drwx------+ 79 scott staff 2686 26 Feb 20:54 Downloads
B[1] is drwxr-xr-x 34 scott staff 1156 5 Mar 00:33 scripts