Configuration.xml has "mysearchstring" at position (line) 23.
If I use the following statement, it returns me line 23
awk '/"mysearchstring"/{print NR}' Configuration.xml
But if I use an assigned variable, it returns me nothing
str="mySearchString";awk '/$str/{print NR}' Configuration.xml
Can someone tell me what is incorrect in the second statement?
You need to pass the variable to awk with -v and then use the ~ comparison:
awk -v myvar="$str" '$0 ~ myvar {print NR}' Configuration.xml
Example
$ cat a
hello
how
are
you
$ awk '/e/ {print NR}' a <---- hardcoded
1
3
$ awk -v myvar="e" '$0~myvar {print NR}' a <---- through variable
1
3
You can use the command-line option -v to pass variables to awk:
awk -v searchstr="$str" '$0 ~ searchstr { print NR }'
Or you can pass variable like this, after code:
awk '$0~s {print NR}' s="$str" file
Related
I have some text I need to split up to extract the relevant argument, and my [g]awk match command does not behave - I just want to understand why?! (I have written a less elegant way around it now...).
So the string is blahblah|msgcontent1=HeaderUUIiewConsenFlagPSMessage|msgtype2=Blah002|msgcontent2=header
I want to output just the contents of msgcontent1=, so did
echo "blahblah|msgcontent1=HeaderUUIiewConsenFlagPSMessage|msgtype2=Blah002|msgcontent2=header" | gawk '{ if (match($0,/msgcontent1=(.*)[|]/,a)) { print a[1]; } }'
Trouble instead of getting
HeaderUUIiewConsenFlagPSMessage
I get the match with everything from there to the last pipe of the string HeaderUUIiewConsenFlagPSMessage|msgtype2=Blah002
Now I accept this is because the regexp in /msgcontent1=(.*)[|]/ can match multiple ways, but HOW do I make it match the way I want it to??
With your shown samples please try following. Written and tested in GNU awk this will print only contents from msgcontent1= till | first occurrence.
awk 'match($0,/msgcontent1=[^|]*/){print substr($0,RSTART+12,RLENGTH-12)}' Input_file
OR with echo + awk try:
echo "blahblah|msgcontent1=HeaderUUIiewConsenFlagPSMessage|msgtype2=Blah002|msgcontent2=header" |
awk 'match($0,/msgcontent1=[^|]*/){print substr($0,RSTART+12,RLENGTH-12)}'
With FPAT option in GNU awk:
awk -v FPAT='msgcontent1=[^|]*' '{sub(/.*=/,"",$1);print $1}' Input_file
This is your input:
s='blahblah|msgcontent1=HeaderUUIiewConsenFlagPSMessage|msgtype2=Blah002|msgcontent2=header'
You may use gnu awk like this to extract value after msgcontent1=:
awk -F= -v RS='|' '$1 == "msgcontent1" {print $2}' <<< "$s"
HeaderUUIiewConsenFlagPSMessage
or using this sed:
sed -E 's/^(.*\|)?msgcontent1=([^|]+).*/\2/' <<< "$s"
HeaderUUIiewConsenFlagPSMessage
Or using this gnu grep:
grep -oP '(^|\|)msgcontent1=\K[^|]+' <<< "$s"
HeaderUUIiewConsenFlagPSMessage
echo "blahblah|msgcontent1=HeaderUUIiewConsenFlagPSMessage|msgtype2=Blah002|msgcontent2=header" | awk '{ if (match($0,/msgcontent1=([^\|]*)/,a)) print a[1] }'
this prints HeaderUUIiewConsenFlagPSMessage
The reason your regex match msgcontent1=HeaderUUIiewConsenFlagPSMessage|msgtype2=Blah002 is that matching is 'hungry' so it allways finds the longest possible match
Also with awk:
echo 'blahblah|msgcontent1=HeaderUUIiewConsenFlagPSMessage|msgtype2=Blah002|msgcontent2=header' | awk -v FS='[=|]' '$2 == "msgcontent1" {print $3}'
HeaderUUIiewConsenFlagPSMessage
I found some ways to pass external shell variables to an awk script, but I'm confused about ' and ".
First, I tried with a shell script:
$ v=123test
$ echo $v
123test
$ echo "$v"
123test
Then tried awk:
$ awk 'BEGIN{print "'$v'"}'
$ 123test
$ awk 'BEGIN{print '"$v"'}'
$ 123
Why is the difference?
Lastly I tried this:
$ awk 'BEGIN{print " '$v' "}'
$ 123test
$ awk 'BEGIN{print ' "$v" '}'
awk: cmd. line:1: BEGIN{print
awk: cmd. line:1: ^ unexpected newline or end of string
I'm confused about this.
#Getting shell variables into awk
may be done in several ways. Some are better than others. This should cover most of them. If you have a comment, please leave below. v1.5
Using -v (The best way, most portable)
Use the -v option: (P.S. use a space after -v or it will be less portable. E.g., awk -v var= not awk -vvar=)
variable="line one\nline two"
awk -v var="$variable" 'BEGIN {print var}'
line one
line two
This should be compatible with most awk, and the variable is available in the BEGIN block as well:
If you have multiple variables:
awk -v a="$var1" -v b="$var2" 'BEGIN {print a,b}'
Warning. As Ed Morton writes, escape sequences will be interpreted so \t becomes a real tab and not \t if that is what you search for. Can be solved by using ENVIRON[] or access it via ARGV[]
PS If you have vertical bar or other regexp meta characters as separator like |?( etc, they must be double escaped. Example 3 vertical bars ||| becomes -F'\\|\\|\\|'. You can also use -F"[|][|][|]".
Example on getting data from a program/function inn to awk (here date is used)
awk -v time="$(date +"%F %H:%M" -d '-1 minute')" 'BEGIN {print time}'
Example of testing the contents of a shell variable as a regexp:
awk -v var="$variable" '$0 ~ var{print "found it"}'
Variable after code block
Here we get the variable after the awk code. This will work fine as long as you do not need the variable in the BEGIN block:
variable="line one\nline two"
echo "input data" | awk '{print var}' var="${variable}"
or
awk '{print var}' var="${variable}" file
Adding multiple variables:
awk '{print a,b,$0}' a="$var1" b="$var2" file
In this way we can also set different Field Separator FS for each file.
awk 'some code' FS=',' file1.txt FS=';' file2.ext
Variable after the code block will not work for the BEGIN block:
echo "input data" | awk 'BEGIN {print var}' var="${variable}"
Here-string
Variable can also be added to awk using a here-string from shells that support them (including Bash):
awk '{print $0}' <<< "$variable"
test
This is the same as:
printf '%s' "$variable" | awk '{print $0}'
P.S. this treats the variable as a file input.
ENVIRON input
As TrueY writes, you can use the ENVIRON to print Environment Variables.
Setting a variable before running AWK, you can print it out like this:
X=MyVar
awk 'BEGIN{print ENVIRON["X"],ENVIRON["SHELL"]}'
MyVar /bin/bash
ARGV input
As Steven Penny writes, you can use ARGV to get the data into awk:
v="my data"
awk 'BEGIN {print ARGV[1]}' "$v"
my data
To get the data into the code itself, not just the BEGIN:
v="my data"
echo "test" | awk 'BEGIN{var=ARGV[1];ARGV[1]=""} {print var, $0}' "$v"
my data test
Variable within the code: USE WITH CAUTION
You can use a variable within the awk code, but it's messy and hard to read, and as Charles Duffy points out, this version may also be a victim of code injection. If someone adds bad stuff to the variable, it will be executed as part of the awk code.
This works by extracting the variable within the code, so it becomes a part of it.
If you want to make an awk that changes dynamically with use of variables, you can do it this way, but DO NOT use it for normal variables.
variable="line one\nline two"
awk 'BEGIN {print "'"$variable"'"}'
line one
line two
Here is an example of code injection:
variable='line one\nline two" ; for (i=1;i<=1000;++i) print i"'
awk 'BEGIN {print "'"$variable"'"}'
line one
line two
1
2
3
.
.
1000
You can add lots of commands to awk this way. Even make it crash with non valid commands.
One valid use of this approach, though, is when you want to pass a symbol to awk to be applied to some input, e.g. a simple calculator:
$ calc() { awk -v x="$1" -v z="$3" 'BEGIN{ print x '"$2"' z }'; }
$ calc 2.7 '+' 3.4
6.1
$ calc 2.7 '*' 3.4
9.18
There is no way to do that using an awk variable populated with the value of a shell variable, you NEED the shell variable to expand to become part of the text of the awk script before awk interprets it. (see comment below by Ed M.)
Extra info:
Use of double quote
It's always good to double quote variable "$variable"
If not, multiple lines will be added as a long single line.
Example:
var="Line one
This is line two"
echo $var
Line one This is line two
echo "$var"
Line one
This is line two
Other errors you can get without double quote:
variable="line one\nline two"
awk -v var=$variable 'BEGIN {print var}'
awk: cmd. line:1: one\nline
awk: cmd. line:1: ^ backslash not last character on line
awk: cmd. line:1: one\nline
awk: cmd. line:1: ^ syntax error
And with single quote, it does not expand the value of the variable:
awk -v var='$variable' 'BEGIN {print var}'
$variable
More info about AWK and variables
Read this faq.
It seems that the good-old ENVIRON awk built-in hash is not mentioned at all. An example of its usage:
$ X=Solaris awk 'BEGIN{print ENVIRON["X"], ENVIRON["TERM"]}'
Solaris rxvt
You could pass in the command-line option -v with a variable name (v) and a value (=) of the environment variable ("${v}"):
% awk -vv="${v}" 'BEGIN { print v }'
123test
Or to make it clearer (with far fewer vs):
% environment_variable=123test
% awk -vawk_variable="${environment_variable}" 'BEGIN { print awk_variable }'
123test
You can utilize ARGV:
v=123test
awk 'BEGIN {print ARGV[1]}' "$v"
Note that if you are going to continue into the body, you will need to adjust
ARGC:
awk 'BEGIN {ARGC--} {print ARGV[2], $0}' file "$v"
I just changed #Jotne's answer for "for loop".
for i in `seq 11 20`; do host myserver-$i | awk -v i="$i" '{print "myserver-"i" " $4}'; done
I had to insert date at the beginning of the lines of a log file and it's done like below:
DATE=$(date +"%Y-%m-%d")
awk '{ print "'"$DATE"'", $0; }' /path_to_log_file/log_file.log
It can be redirect to another file to save
Pro Tip
It could come handy to create a function that handles this so you dont have to type everything every time. Using the selected solution we get...
awk_switch_columns() {
cat < /dev/stdin | awk -v a="$1" -v b="$2" " { t = \$a; \$a = \$b; \$b = t; print; } "
}
And use it as...
echo 'a b c d' | awk_switch_columns 2 4
Output:
a d c b
I know 2 things about awk:
1.
PAT='aGeneName'
awk -v var="$PAT" '$3 ~ var {print $0}' file.txt # will print the line where 3rd field includes the variable $PAT
2.
awk '$3 ~ /^aGeneName/' file.txt # will print the line where 3rd field starts with string "aGeneName"
But what I want is the combination of these two: I want to print the line where the 3rd field starts with the variable $PAT, something like
PAT='aGeneName'
awk -v var="$PAT" '$3 ~ /^var/ {print $0}' file.txt # but this is wrong, since variable can't be put into //
One way is like this:
PAT='aGeneName'
awk -v var="$PAT" '$3 ~ "^" var {print $0}' file.txt
And the {print $0} can be saved here, it's implied.
Another way, when the pattern var is a simple string, no RegEX character inside:
PAT='aGeneName'
awk -v var="$PAT" 'index($3, var)==1' file.txt
# My vars
index=test
type=book
I'm trying to pass these variables to awk
awk -v index="$index" -v type="$type" 'BEGIN{print "{\"create\": {\"_index\":\"index\", \"_type\":\"type\"}}"}; {print}; END {printf "\n"}'
Desired output
{"create": {"_index":"test", "_type":"book"}}
Don't embed the variables in the string:
awk -v idx="$index" -v type="$type" 'BEGIN{print "{\"create\": {\"_index\":\"" idx "\", \"_type\":\"" type "\"}}"} {print} END {print ""}'
You can't use index as an awk variable name, btw, as that's the name of an awk function.
I have a file:
AWK question about the example
This command that works well:
awk '{ gsub(/...../, "&\n" ) ; print}' file
AWK q
uesti
on ab
out t
he ex
ample
Why this command does not print the same result?
awk '{ gsub(/.{5}/, "&\n" ) ; print}' file
AWK question about the example
Why this command does not print the same result?
awk -v WIDTH=5 '{ gsub(".{"WIDTH"}", "&\n"); print }' file
AWK question about the example
To use {5} you need to enable re-interval like this:
awk --re-interval '{ gsub(/.{5}/, "&\n" ) ; print}' file
awk -v WIDTH=5 --re-interval '{ gsub(".{"WIDTH"}", "&\n"); print }' file
You could also use --posix too, but it will disable other functions in awk
awk -v WIDTH=5 --posix '{ gsub(".{"WIDTH"}", "&\n"); print }' file
You can use the fold command instead of awk:
fold -w 5 input
or if you don't have the input in a file:
echo 'AWK question about the example' | fold -w 5
Both Give:
AWK q
uesti
on ab
out t
he ex
ample