Question

I have this array:

array=(1 2 3 4 4 3 4 3)

I can get the largest number with:

echo "num: $(printf "%d\n" ${array[@]} | sort -nr | head -n 1)"
#outputs 4

But i want to get all 4’s add sum them up, meaning I want it to output 12 (there are 3 occurrences of 4) instead. any ideas?

Answer 1

Using awk:

$ printf "%d\n" "${array[@]}" | sort -nr | awk 'NR>1 && p!=$0{print x;exit;}{x+=$0;p=$0;}'
12

Using sort, the numbers are sorted(-n) in reverse(-r) order, and the awk keeps summing the numbers till it finds a number which is different from the previous one.