Question

I have simple script:

#!/bin/sh
column=$1
awk '{print $'$column'}'

When I run:

ls -la | ./Column.sh

I receive:

awk: {print $}
awk:         ^ syntax error

Why? All seems correct.

Answer 1

It is not very clear what you want the script to do.

The cause of this error is that you are not passing any arguments to the script. As a result $1 is empty.

You need to pass the column number that you want to print:

ls -la | ./Column.sh 1

Will print the permissions column which is in column 1.