将AWK中的多个结果保存到Shell变量

Question

Save multiple results from an AWK script to c shell variables.

I have a simple AWK script running in the terminal to find max and min from an input text file.

How do we save this max and min values to c shell variable in order to use it later.

Here is the AWK

awk 'NR == 1 { xmax=$1; xmin=$1 } \
    { if ($1>xmax) xmax=$1; if ($1<xmin) xmin=$1;} \
    END {printf "X-Min: %d\tX-Max: %d\n", xmin, xmax}' $inpfile

I want to save this in already defined variables lets say $xmin and $xmax

Any suggestion would be a great help, I have no prior experience with SHELL and AWK.

Answer 1

As others have said, you can't pass values from awk to the shell.

You'll need to rely on the shells ability to perform cmd-substitution.

Back when all I had was csh, I would have done

setenv xmin_xmax = `awk 'NR == 1 { xmax=$1; xmin=$1 } \
{ if ($1>xmax) xmax=$1; if ($1<xmin) xmin=$1; printf("%d|%d\n", xmin, xmax}' $inpfile`

setenv xmin = `echo "$xmin_xmax" | sed 's/|.*$//'`
setenv xmax = `echo "$xmin_xmax" | sed 's/*.|//'`

Sorry but I don't have access to a csh to test this with now. As you're inside a cmd-substitution with your awk, you'll probably need more continuation chars \\ to connect those lines.

If you have trouble with this, post the error messages as comments, and I'll see if I can remember the special csh incantations.

EDIT Or see Grymoire CSH tips for how to use array variables in csh. (I don't recall this!)

IHTH