Get last item of array returned by find command in bash

Question

I have command:

bigfiles=$(find "${path}/" -printf '%s %p\n'| sort -nr | head -2 | sed 's/^[^ ]* //')

Now I want to get last item like

anotherfile=$bigfiles[1]

and it seems to be empty

How to get n-th element of results from find command ?

your problem is getting the nth line from an input or convert the multi-line into shell array? — Kent
– Kent, Commented Jun 9, 2020 at 10:10

Jetchisel · Accepted Answer · 2020-06-09 10:07:39Z

1

by using mapfile which is a bash4+ feature, might do what you wanted.

mapfile -t bigfiles < <(find "${path}/" -printf '%s %p\n'| sort -nr | head -2 | sed 's/^[^ ]* //')

anotherfile=${bigfiles[-1]}
echo "$anotherfile"

-1 is the last element/item in the array.
If you're just interested in the last item with find's output , you can probably pipe the output to tail or maybe head depending on what you're trying to do with it.

answered Jun 9, 2020 at 10:01

Jetchisel

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