I need to get the first two file names from a directory ...
My code
directory=$(ls -r --format=single-column)
works perfect and gives me ...
20030617Jun17.tar.gz 20030616Jun16.tar.gz 20030615Jun15.tar.gz
20030614Jun14.tar.gz 20030613Jun13.tar.gz 20030612Jun12.tar.gz
20030611Jun11.tar.gz 20030610Jun10.tar.gz 20030609Jun09.tar.gz
20030608Jun08.tar.gz 20030607Jun07.tar.gz 20030606Jun06.tar.gz
20030605Jun05.tar.gz 20030604Jun04.tar.gz 20030603Jun03.tar.gz
20030602Jun02.tar.gz 20030601Jun01.tar.gz 20030531May31.tar.gz
20030530May30.tar.gz 20030529May29.tar.gz 20030528May28.tar.gz
20030527May27.tar.gz 20030526May26.tar.gz 20030525May25.tar.gz
20030524May24.tar.gz 20030523May23.tar.gz 20030522May22.tar.gz
20030521May21.tar.gz 20030520May20.tar.gz 20030519May19.tar.gz
20030518May18.tar.gz 20030517May17.tar.gz 20030516May16.tar.gz
20030515May15.tar.gz 20030514May14.tar.gz 20030513May13.tar.gz
20030512May12.tar.gz 20030511May11.tar.gz 20030510May10.tar.gz
20030509May09.tar.gz 20030508May08.tar.gz 20030507May07.tar.gz
20030506May06.tar.gz 20030505May05.tar.gz 20030504May04.tar.gz
20030503May03.tar.gz 20030426Apr26.tar.gz 20030419Apr19.tar.gz
20030412Apr12.tar.gz 20030405Apr05.tar.gz 20030329Mar29.tar.gz
20030322Mar22.tar.gz 20030315Mar15.tar.gz 20030308Mar08.tar.gz
20030301Mar01.tar.gz 20030222Feb22.tar.gz 20030215Feb15.tar.gz
20030208Feb08.tar.gz 20030205Feb05.tar.gz
I want to cut the first two file names from the list ... To my way of
thinking this should be easy ...
cut -d' ' -f2 $directory
The xterm goes nuts and ends up in hyroglyphics ! At a guess I would
say that the white space between .gz & 200... may not be space but may
have a different ascii value. I have not found a utility to display
raw ASCII for a file yet to check this out.
I am a relative begginer at learning bash ...
Any suggestions
Dave