Question

How can I find the maximum element and its index from an array in shell script. I have an array

a = [-2.2116565098 -2.1238242060 -2.1747941240 -2.3201010162 -2.3677779871 -1.8126464132 -2.1247209755 -2.1190930712 -2.3242384636 -2.1081702064];

Now, I want to find the maximum as well as its index in bash script. Is there a shortcut like in Matlab we have

[C, I] = max(a);

Also, also how can we have multi-dimensional array and get the index and value of minimum and maximum element.

Answer 1

$ x='-2.2116565098 -2.1238242060 -2.1747941240 -2.3201010162 -2.3677779871'
$ IC=(`tr ' ' '\n' <<<$x | cat -n | sort -k2,2nr | head -n1`)
$ I=${IC[0]} C=${IC[1]}
$ echo $I $C
2 -2.1238242060