Parsing errors in awk blocks - awk

Question

awk 'BEGIN
{
INPUTFILE ='XXX'; iterator =0;
requestIterator =0;
storageFlag =T;
printFlag =F;
currentIteration =F;
recordCount =1;
while (getline < "'"$INPUTFILE"'")
{
requestArray[requestIterator]++;
requestIterator++;
}
}
if ($1 ~ /RequestId/)
{
FS = "=";
if($2 in requestArray)
{
storage[iterator] =$0;
printFlag =T;
next
}
else
{
storageFlag =F;
next
}
}
else
{
if((storageFlag =='T' && $0 != "EOE"))
{
storage[iterator]=$0; iterator++;
}
else {if(storageFlag == 'F')
{
next
}
else
{
if(printFlag == 'T')
{
for(details in storage)
{
print storage[details] >> FILE1;
delete storage[details];
}
printFlag =F;
storageFlag =T;
next
}
}'
I am facing some syntax error in the above code. Could you ppl please help me?
awk: BEGIN{INPUTFILE =XXXX;iterator =0;requestIterator =0;storageFlag =T;printFlag =F;currentIteration =F;recordCount =1;while (getline < ""){requestArray[requestIterator]++;requestIterator++;}}if ($1 ~ /RequestId/){FS = "=";if($2 in requestArray){storage[iterator] =$0;printFlag =T;next}else{storageFlag =F;next}}else{if((storageFlag ==T && $0 != EOE)){storage[iterator]=$0;iterator++;}else{if(storageFlag == F){next}else{if(printFlag == T){for(details in storage){print storage[details] >> XXXX;delete storage[details];}printFlag = F;storageFlag =T;next}}}}
awk: ^ syntax error
awk: ^ syntax error

Answer 1

Quotes are the problem. The first single quotes on INPUTFILE ='XXX' is going to be parsed as matching the one before BEGIN, and from then on all the parsing is broken.
Either escape the quotes or just put the awk file into a seperate file rather than "inline".
# STARTING POINT - known bad
awk 'BEGIN { INPUTFILE ='XXX'; iterator =0; ... '
Has to be rewritten to remove all of the single quotes inside the outer pair
awk 'BEGIN { INPUTFILE ="XXX"; iterator =0; ... '
Or depending on if you need doubles or singles, use doubles outside and single inside
awk "BEGIN { INPUTFILE ='XXX'; iterator =0; ... '
or escape the singles quotes so they make it through to awk and don't get consumed by the shell.
awk 'BEGIN { INPUTFILE =\'XXX\'; iterator =0; ... '
All of your problems go away if you put the awk script into a separate file rather than inlining it the shell. You can have whatever quotes you like and no one will care !!