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I am still very new to Linux, and I am tasked with writing a bash script that outputs various details inside a menu box. These details include:

Directory owner/permissions,
Number of files in directory,
and Name and size of biggest file

Here is what I have so far:

function show_details(){

read -p "Please enter a path: " path1


cd $path1


ls -ld | > $OUTPUT


ls | wc -l > $OUTPUT


find . -maxdepth 1 -printf '%s %p\n'|sort -nr|head -n 1 > $OUTPUT


display_output 13 25 "Details"


}

It successfully reads the path, as well as outputs name and size of biggest file, but skips the first two. What am I doing wrong that causes the output file to ONLY read the final '> $OUTPUT' with name/biggest file? Any help is appreciated!

Gilles Quénot
  • 33,867
Luke
  • 11
  • Your main issue is what is explained in the duplicate: you should use >> instead of >. However, there are some other things you should look at: i) don't parse the output of ls. See Greg's Wiki. ii) avoid using CAPS for shell variable names. By convention, global environment variables are capitalized and if yours are as well, that can lead to naming collisions. iii) don't ask your user to type a path, read it at launch (show_details /path and then use $1). iiv) *always quote your variables*. – terdon Mar 23 '23 at 16:19
  • This is a really useful tool if you're learning shell scripting (and even if you're an expert): https://www.shellcheck.net/. It will point out errors and bad practices in any script you give it. – terdon Mar 23 '23 at 16:19

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