UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi folks,

I am very new to awk. I have what is probably a very simple question. I'm trying to get the max value of column 1, but also print column 2. My data looks like this:

Code:

0.044|2000-02-03 14:00:00
5.23|2000-02-03 05:45:00
5.26|2000-02-03 11:15:00
0|2000-02-01 18:30:00

So in this case I would want it to find that 5.26 is the max and then print the entire line to look like this:

Code:

5.26|2000-02-03 11:15:00

This is what I have currently, but instead of printing column 2 that is associated with the max, it prints the very last value for column2 in the file:

Code:

max_stg=$(awk 'max=="" || $1 > max {max=$1} END{ print max "|" $2}' FS="|" $STAGE_FILE)

So, the above results in:

Code:

5.26|2000-02-01 18:30:00

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks so much!

So just change slightly what you have...

Code:

$(awk 'max=="" || $1 > max {max=$1; l=$0} END{ print l}' FS="|" $STAGE_FILE)

Thank you, thank you, thank you, shamrock! You rock! It works great.