to print the last character on the last line of the file

naveensankineni · 02-27-2008, 03:43 PM

Hi,

I need to print the last character on the last line of the file and check weather is ; or /

iam trying the follwing code

tail -1 script.sh | awk '{print $NF}'

forrestt · 02-27-2008, 03:45 PM

What is wrong with that? Seems to work or me.

Forrest

Never mind, it prints the last word of the file. The file I picked to test with only had one char for the last word.

forrestt · 02-27-2008, 03:54 PM

Try:

Code:

tail -1 fix_sendmail.sh | awk '{print substr($NF, length($NF), 1)}'

HTH

Forrest

ghostdog74 · 02-27-2008, 07:34 PM

Code:

fix_sendmail.sh  | awk 'BEGIN{FS=""}END{print $NF}'

osor · 02-27-2008, 08:52 PM

What’s wrong with

Code:

tail -c1 file

Or, (if you have trailing newlines)

Code:

tail -c2 file

pixellany · 02-27-2008, 08:53 PM

sed -n '$s/.*$.$/\1/p' filename > newfilename

ta0kira · 02-27-2008, 09:32 PM

How do all of these utils handle \r\n and \r end-of-lines? I've never tried any of them with other-than \n files.
ta0kira

ghostdog74 · 02-27-2008, 10:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by osor

What’s wrong with

Code:

tail -c1 file

Or, (if you have trailing newlines)

Code:

tail -c2 file

nothing wrong, just that if its in systems like Solaris, might have to adjust the syntax a little.

Code:

tail -2c file

works both in linux and solaris.

pixellany · 02-28-2008, 07:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ta0kira

How do all of these utils handle \r\n and \r end-of-lines? I've never tried any of them with other-than \n files.
ta0kira

In the case of SED, the newline at the end of the line in the pattern buffer gets ignored. (You can see what is in the pattern buffer with the "l" command.)

I just did an experiment with a tab a the end of the line. My SED command returns the tab character as the last character of the line (ie not the last printable character) My hunch is that the final newline is the only one that is ignored, but I have not tested.

naveensankineni · 02-28-2008, 09:49 AM

Thanks to all its working

tail -1 fix_sendmail.sh | awk '{print substr($NF, length($NF), 1)}'

naveensankineni · 02-28-2008, 09:51 AM

hi ,

i just need to check that my last line at the end of the script is a blank line or not

iam trying to satisfy the if condition for this but i coudn't

code which i had tried is

blank = `tail -1 /home/oracle/grep.sh`
if [ "$blank" = '' ]
then
echo "end of the line is the blank line"
else
echo "error"
fi

please suggest

osor · 02-28-2008, 01:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ghostdog74

nothing wrong, just that if its in systems like Solaris, might have to adjust the syntax a little.

Code:

tail -2c file

works both in linux and solaris.

I believe this is the ‘historical’ usage of tail. The command that I posted is the ‘portable’ (in particular POSIX-compliant) usage of tail. Since Solaris is POSIX-compliant, you should be able to use the usage I posted on Solaris as well (you might have to put /usr/xpg4/bin ahead in your PATH).

ghostdog74 · 02-28-2008, 08:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by osor

you might have to put /usr/xpg4/bin ahead in your PATH).

yes, totally forgot about this. thks.