How do I get the name of the newest file via the Terminal?

Question

I\'m trying to create a macro for Keyboard Maestro for OS X doing the following:

1. Get name of newest file in a directory on my disk based on date created;

Answer 1

Since you're already using pipes, just throw another one in there:

ls -t | head -n1 |awk '{printf("newest file: %s",$0)}'

(Note that the "printf" does not include a '\n' at the end; that gets rid of the linebreak)

Edit:

With Arkku's suggestion to exit awk after the first line, it looks like:

ls -t | awk '{printf("newest file: %s",$0);exit}'