UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

hi
I want to display the latest file in script.
say for example

file.txt1
file.txt2
file.txt3(latest)

in the script

var1=`ls -ltr file.txt* | tail-1`
echo $var1


This is what i am using. But this says that file.txt*: No such file or directory


To the same script if I pass file.txt* as parameter and
when i use the below it is working

var1=`ls -ltr $1 | tail-1`
echo $var1


Can some help me with first method

Thanks in advance
Ammu

Not sure I uderstood your question:
var1=`ls -ltr $1 | tail-1`
echo $var1

---
Perhaps you are trying to achieve the output of:
ls -ltr $1 | head -1

I will make it clear

file.txt1
file.txt2
file.txt3(latest)

I want to display the latest file file.txt3 (file.txt* series).
I need the something like below

var1=`ls -ltr..............`
echo $var1

Thanks in advance
Ammu

var1=`ls -tr1 file.txt* | tail -1`
echo $var1

does it help?

I still dont see where is the problem...
Here on aix 5.3:
vbe@ it34: /usr/tivoli/tsm/client/ba/bin> ll dsm.o*
-rw-r--r-- 1 root system 345 Jan 24 17:23 dsm.opt
-rw-r--r-- 1 root system 419 Jan 20 2005 dsm.opt.adsm2
-rw-r--r-- 1 root system 419 Jan 20 2005 dsm.opt.adsm3
-rw-r--r-- 1 root system 421 Jan 20 2005 dsm.opt.adsmsrv
-rw-r--r-- 1 root system 782 Nov 27 2006 dsm.opt.smp
vbe@ it34: /usr/tivoli/tsm/client/ba/bin> VAR1=`ll -ltr dsm.o*|tail -1`
vbe@ it34: /usr/tivoli/tsm/client/ba/bin> echo $VAR1
-rw-r--r-- 1 root system 345 Jan 24 17:23 dsm.opt
vbe@ it34: /usr/tivoli/tsm/client/ba/bin>

I guess that globbing is disabled in your script,do you find anything of this sort
set -f or set noglob in your script?

Thanks
Nagarajan G