max value

[userand]

Hello again,

sorry for this repeated post, but I need some help.

I have the following lines:

2 2 2 1 1
1 2 5 1 1
1 2 2
1 17 2 1 2 3 2 3

How can I print out the maximum value of a line?

I have tried this, but cannot helps me at the moment

awk '{for(i=1;i<=NF;i++){if($i > max) max = $i;}}END{print max}' < the/file/

but prints only 17

 

[olded]

The way your code is written, 17 is the correct answer. Your code is written to replace max only if a field is greater than max. 17 is numerically the largest field.

What do you expect it to print?

 

[CaKiwi]

If you want to print out the maximum for each line, try

{max=$1;for(i=2;i<=NF;i++){if($i > max) max = $i}print max}

CaKiwi