UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

hi, i have an awk script and I managed to figure out how to search the max value but Im having difficulty in searching for the min field value.


BEGIN {FS=","; max=0}
NF == 7 {if (max < $6) max = $6;}
END { print man, min}

where $6 is the column of a field separated by a comma

What's the range of possible values? Can you just initialize min to some ridiculously large value?

Code:

BEGIN { FS=","; max=0; min=9876543210; }
NF == 7 { if (max < $6) max=$6; if (min > $6) min=$6; }
END { print min, max }

Some variants of awk might have a problem with an integer of that size; if you get an error message, try with different values.

Another approach might be to initialize it to an empty string, and make a more complex condition to cover that case. Yet another approach might be to have a sentinel variable which is set to 0 initially and then to 1 when max and min are first defined:

Code:

BEGIN { FS=","; defined=0; }
NF==7 { if (! defined) { max = min = $6; defined = 1; next;
    if (max < $6) max=$6; if (min > $6) min=$6; }
END { print min, max }

hi era, thank you for taking time to respond. actually, the range will include from a whole number to a decimal number. lets say 75000 - 0.005

Sample input and desired output please.