Awk not working inside bash script

Question

Im trying to write a bash script and trying to take input from user and executing a kill command to stop a specific tomcat.

...

read user_input
if [ "$user_input" = "2" ]
then
ps -ef | grep "search-tomcat" |awk {'"'"'print $2'"'"'}| xargs kill -9
echo "Search Tomcat Shut Down"
fi

...

I have confirmed that the line

ps -ef | grep "search-tomcat"

works fine in script but:

ps -ef | grep "search-tomcat" |awk {'"'"'print $2'"'"'}

doesnt yield any results in script, but gives desired output in terminal, so there has to be some problem with awk command

That seems to work! But now Im stuck at the last part: passing the results as a parameters to xargs. — Bhuvan Rawal
use the {} tool in the edit box menu at the top left on highlighted text get get properly formatted code, data, output and error msgs ;-) Good luck! — shellter

Dale_Reagan Dale_Reagan · Accepted Answer · 2015-09-15T00:07:37

xargs can be tricky - Try:

kill -9 $(ps -ef | awk '/search-tomcat/ {print $2}')

If you prefer using xargs then check man page for options for your target OS (i.e. xargs -n.)

Also noting that 'kill -9' is a non-graceful process exit mechanism (i.e. possible file corruption, other strangeness) so I suggest only using as a last resort...

:)

Awk not working inside bash script

1 Answers