1

I want to get onre output of top to variable for future processing. I tried:

top=$(top -n1)
top=$(top -n1 -w80)
top=$(top -n1 -b -w80)
top=$(COLUMNS=100 top -b-n1)

When I run echo $top then I see something like on the screenshot enter image description here that is top output completely without line breaks. What am I doing wrong?

Community
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Putnik
  • 886

2 Answers2

1

Double-quote the variable

try echo "${top}" after assigning top="$(top -n1)"

Community
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Andrew Siplas
  • 464
0

Unable to replicate:

$ t="$( top -b -n1 )"
$ echo "$t" | head -n3
top - 14:49:52 up 243 days, 17:18,  2 users,  load average: 0.03, 0.07, 0.12
Tasks: 205 total,   1 running, 203 sleeping,   1 stopped,   0 zombie
%Cpu(s):  2.4 us,  0.5 sy,  0.1 ni, 96.4 id,  0.7 wa,  0.0 hi,  0.0 si,  0.0 st
DopeGhoti
  • 76,081
  • I think he is seeing the same thing as you based on his screenshot. I'm guessing he only wants the top line? – jesse_b Nov 15 '17 at 21:51
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    The difference is that in the OP's screen capture, there are no linebreaks. I am unable to replicate this. – DopeGhoti Nov 15 '17 at 21:54
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    I can replicate that on centos 7. As Andrew pointed out in his answer, the variable must be quoted or it prints as a single line. – jesse_b Nov 15 '17 at 22:04