On Wed 29 Jan 2003 08:37:35 +0000(+0100), Jean-Marc V. Liotier wrote: > > files=`find . -name '*.tif' -print | wc -l | tail -c 2 | head -c 1` > cpu=`grep processor /proc/cpuinfo | wc -l | tail -c 2 | head -c 1`
If I understand you, you're using "tail -c 2 | head -c 1" to separate the number of lines from the whitespace in the "wc -l" output. In fact it appears to extract just the last digit. You could use "awk '{print $1}'" to print the number on its own. > nnumber=`expr $files / $cpu` I think you would want to round up nnumber to avoid one processor running two xargs processes: nnumber=`expr \( $files + $cpu - 1 \) / $cpu` -- Cheers, Clive -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]