There is an input file 'data.txt' that contains the following numbers
11.0 22.0 33.0 -10.5 -2
How to find the value and index of the smallest number in the file. In that case the output will be
Value -10.5
Index 4
Break it to multiple lines using grep, attach line number (index) using cat -n and then sort on the value. For smallest number, choose the first record (head -1)
# here is the file...
$ cat data.txt
11.0 22.0 33.0 0.5 44.0
# here is the output you want
$ grep -o '[^ ]\+' data.txt | cat -n | sort -g --key=2 | head -1
4 0.5
If you want the values in separate variables
# store the value in a variable
$ res=`grep -o '[^ ]\+' data.txt | cat -n | sort -g --key=2 | head -1 | xargs`
# then cut out the data
$ index=`echo $res | cut -f1 -d' '`
$ value=`echo $res | cut -f2 -d' '`
$ echo $index
4
$ echo $value
0.5