AWK - find min value of each row with arbitrary size

Question

I have a file with the lines as:

5 3 6 4 2 3 5
1 4 3 2 6 5 8
..

I want to get the min on each line, so for example with the input given abo

Answer 1

Your problem is pretty simple. All you need to do is to define a variable min in the BEGIN part of your script, and at each line, you just have to perform a simple C-like algorithm for minimum element (set the first field as min, and then perform a check with the next field, and so on until you reach the final field of the line). The total number of fields in the line will be known to you because of the variable NF. So its just a matter of writing a for loop. Once the for loop is fully executed for the line, you will have the minimum element with you, and you could just print it.