Bash-Beginners-Guide

Bash Guide for Beginners
record1
record2
data1
data2
kelly@octarine ~/test> awk '{ print $1 $2}' test
record1data1
record2data2
kelly@octarine ~/test> awk '{ print $1, $2}' test
record1 data1
record2 data2
kelly@octarine ~/test>
If you don't put in the commas, print will treat the items to output as one argument, thus omitting the use of
the default output separator, OFS.
Any character string may be used as the output field separator by setting this built-in variable.
6.3.2.2. The output record separator
The output from an entire print statement is called an output record. Each print command results in one
output record, and then outputs a string called the output record separator, ORS. The default value for this
variable is "\n", a newline character. Thus, each print statement generates a separate line.
To change the way output fields and records are separated, assign new values to OFS and ORS:
kelly@octarine ~/test> awk 'BEGIN { OFS=";" ; ORS="\n-->\n" } \
{ print $1,$2}' test
record1;data1
-->
record2;data2
-->
kelly@octarine ~/test>
If the value of ORS does not contain a newline, the program's output is run together on a single line.
6.3.3. The number of records
The built-in NR holds the number of records that are processed. It is incremented after reading a new input
line. You can use it at the end to count the total number of records, or in each output record:
kelly@octarine ~/test> cat processed.awk
BEGIN { OFS="-" ; ORS="\n--> done\n" }
{ print "Record number " NR ":\t" $1,$2 }
END { print "Number of records processed: " NR }
kelly@octarine ~/test> awk -f processed.awk test
Record number 1: record1-data1
--> done
Record number 2: record2-data2
--> done
Number of records processed: 2
--> done
kelly@octarine ~/test>
Chapter 6. The GNU awk programming language 75