How to retrieve a file from specific path using unix script?

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

Hi i'm new to shell script,
i want to get the filename from specific location which i mentioned in my script.
The scirpt should read the filename exactly using the following command "ls -ltr | tail -1".

Could someone show me on this. Below is my script

#!/bin/ksh
PATH=  /usr/
if [ -d $PATH ]
then
  echo "is a directory"
  filename = $ls -ltr | tail -1
fi
2

???

It's impossible to understand what you want (for me at least).

3

Don't use spaces around the "=" sign:

#!/bin/ksh
PATH=/usr/
if [ -d $PATH ]
then
  echo "is a directory"
  filename=$(ls -ltr | tail -1)
fi
4

Hi,

Thanks for your reply.

What i exactly required is, i need to write a shell script which list the latest file from the path (ex: /www/a/temp/in/) and i want to reterive the contents of that latest file into a variable defined inside my shell script. (ex: filename).

I'm running my script in the location (/www/a/).

#!/bin/ksh
PATH= /www/a/temp/in/
if [ -d $PATH ]
then
#it should copy the contents of latest file in the specified path into a variable, say for example filename
fi

Please help me on this.

Thanks for your help in advance

5

hi,

You have specified your target directory different from the directory in which script is present...

#!/bin/ksh
PATH=/full/path/to/your/target/directory
cd $PATH   #go in that directory
filename=$( ls -lrt | tail -1 | awk '{print $7}') #variable contains name of latest file
file_content=$(cat $filename) #this variable contains content of that file...
echo $file_content #to see the output

#your code.....=>
if [ -d $PATH ]    # I didn't understand your purpose of checking the directory here...
then
  echo "is a directory"
  filename=$(ls -ltr | tail -1)
fi

Regards,
ironmonkey... :slight_smile: