Bash Environment Variable

Question

I want to define a permanent environment variable to view the last text file in a folder. I added this line in .bashrc file:

export DUMMY="less foldername/`ls foldername/ | tail -n 1`"

The folder is like this:

foldername/
|_ file1
|_ file2
|_ file3
|_ file4
...

The problem is, whenever I use $DUMMY, it opens always the same file (e.g. file3) which is one of the last ones but not very recent one and it is not changing. What is my mistake?

Thank you

David Lukas · Accepted Answer · 2021-10-20 10:30:13Z

1

Wouldn't an alias be better for this case?

alias dummy="less foldername/`ls -tr foldername/ | tail -n 1`"

Then you can use:

dummy

Alias vs export

I add -tr options to ls:
-t - sort by time & date
-r - list in reverse order

edited Oct 20, 2021 at 10:30

answered Oct 20, 2021 at 8:51

David Lukas

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