Calculate column average using bash shell - LinuxConfig.org

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1
Question: Is there a way to calculate a average of a single column stored in a text file? For example my file contains: 
$ cat file.txt
line1 4.5
line2 6
how do I get 5.25 ?
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://linuxconfig.org/calculate-column-average-using-bash-shell
2

Joshua Peters

your near-lack of pipes made me sad, so I patched that right up for ya:

col=$(cat file1.txt | tr -s ' ' '\t' | cut -f2 | paste -s -d'+' -); n=$(echo $col | tr '+' '\n' | wc -w); bc -l <<< "($col)/$n"

3

asstBKR

You’re already using awk, just let it do the work:

$ echo "line1 4.5
> line2 6" > file

$ awk 'BEGIN {total=0} 
> {total+=$2}
> END {printf("%.2f\n",total/NR)}
> ' file
5.25

$
4

Thank you for the awk method! Brilliant.