Scripts for computing the average of a list of numbers in a data file

Here is one method:

$ awk '{s+=$1}END{print "ave:",s/NR}' RS=" " file
ave: 54.646

Another option is to use jq:

$ seq 100|jq -s add/length
50.5

-s (--slurp) creates an array for the input lines after parsing each line as JSON, or as a number in this case.

Or in the OP's case:

tr \  \\n<file|jq -s add/length|sed s/^/ave:\ /

perl -lane '$a+=$_ for(@F);print "ave: ".$a/scalar(@F)' file

if you have multiple lines and you just need a single average:

perl -lane '$a+=$_ for(@F);$f+=scalar(@F);END{print "ave: ".$a/$f}' file

Related