UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

In my script, I have the following command....

du -sk `ls -ltd sales12|awk '{print $11}'`|awk '{print $1}'

it returns the value

383283

I want to modify my script to capture that value into a variable. So, I try doing the following...

var1=`du -sk `ls -ltd sales12|awk '{print $11}'`|awk '{print $1}'`

but that don't work. I know I can do this...

du -sk `ls -ltd sales12|awk '{print $11}'`|awk '{print $1}' > file.dat
var1=`cat file.dat`

and this will work, but then I have a file I need to clean up afterwards.

Any suggestions on how I can within one line get my variable to be set?

Thank you in advance.

however here is your command:

Code:

myvariable=$(du -sk `ls -ltd sales12|awk '{print $11}'`|awk '{print $1}')

What's the use of "ls -ltd sales12"???

Code:

#!/usr/bin/ksh

typeset -i var1
var1=`du -sk sales12 | awk '{ print $1 }'`

ls -ltd will give long list display of directory entries sorted by modification time..

Ex:

u142115@linux2alm:~/aps/aps4/product/den> ls -ltd day*
drwxr-xr-x 2 u142115 users 48 2006-12-05 10:14 day8
drwxr-xr-x 2 u142115 users 312 2006-12-05 10:03 day7
drwxr-xr-x 2 u142115 users 224 2006-11-29 12:08 day4
drwxr-xr-x 2 u142115 users 200 2006-11-28 19:27 day6
drwxr-xr-x 2 u142115 users 400 2006-11-28 11:42 day3
drwxr-xr-x 2 u142115 users 160 2006-11-28 10:00 day5

"ls -ltd sales12" will display ONLY a long listing of "sales12".

"ls -ltd day*" will display a list of files/directories because of the wildcard.

Why you need a long listing if you are only interested in the name ("awk '{print $11}'"? There aren't even 11 fields in that output.

"ls -td day*" will display exactly the same without the need to parse the output with "awk".

Last, but not least, if your "ls" command produces a list, then "var1" will also contain a list of sizes, and not a single value.

Thank you for ur valuable advice...Am a newbie "really working hard to learn Unix in depth"...I think all these will surely help me filling my gaps...and understanding that learning Unix is not soemthing we can just get from books..