Question

I want to get two latest words from a string variable.
Total number of words in the string variable is not constant.

This is what I try:

LIST=`some command`
LATEST1=""
LATEST2=""

for ITEM in $LIST
do
  LATEST2="$LATEST1"
  LATEST1="$ITEM"
done

echo "Latest:     $LATEST1"
echo "2nd latest: $LATEST2"

But it is slow. Is there any better way to do it?

sh shell of busybox is used. Other scripting languages are not available.

Answer 1

Regex which will match the last 2 words (including whitespaces in this case)

(\s\w+){2}$