Save awk output into variable [duplicate]

Question

My intention is to take the second line and look for the characters after the . delimiter. It works like this:

prompt> awk -F '.' 'FNR == 2 {print $NF}' file_name.txt
Sam

However, I wish to store that output in the variable, but its showing an error:

prompt> Name= $(awk -F '.' 'FNR == 2 {print $NF}' file_name.txt)
Sam: command not found

How do I fix that?

paxdiablo · Accepted Answer · 2018-09-24 11:57:35Z

4

You should not have a space between Name= and $(awk. That turns it into a temporary variable assignment for one command, similar to the difference between:

name=bob    # sets name to bob
name= bob   # sets name to nothing while running bob

In other words, use:

prompt> Name=$(awk -F '.' 'FNR == 2 {print $NF}' file_name.txt)
prompt> echo $Name
Sam

answered Sep 24, 2018 at 11:57

paxdiablo

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2 Comments

Piyush Over a year ago

$ test23=awk -F '.' 'FNR == 2 {print $NF}' file_name.txt -ksh: -F: not found [No such file or directory] $ awk -F '.' 'FNR == 2 {print $NF}' file_name.txt Sam $ doesnot work!!

paxdiablo Over a year ago

@PiyushAnand, why are you testing something different to what I suggested? :-) You're missing the $() stuff around the awk command. That makes it an attempt to set test23 to awk then run the -F command.

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