how to change a string to a path in ksh

Question

ls -lAtr /data/log.* | tail -1 | awk '{ printf $9 }' > $logfile
echo $logfile
cat $logfile  # I want to cat the content of this log file, but this wouldn't work

logfile2=/usr/some/path/text.log
echo $logfile2
cat $logfile2 # This work

I am new to shell programming, I wondering how do I convert the logfile into something like logfile2(Did I ask the right question?), so that I can treat it like a file and read from it.

Answer 1

Think you're looking for (works in bash as well)

logfile2="$(</usr/some/path/text.log)"

From ksh man page

$(cat file) can be replaced by the equivalent but faster $(<file).

e.g.

> cat text.log
line 1
line 2
> ksh
> logfile2="$(<text.log)"
> echo "$logfile2"
line 1
line 2

Answer 2

Are you trying to store the result of ls|tail|awk in $logFile? If so:

logFile=$(ls -lAtr /data/log.* | tail -1 | awk '{ printf $9 }')

However, you shouldn't parse the output of ls.