Path: utzoo!mnetor!tmsoft!torsqnt!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!ucsd!cacilj!close
From: close@cacilj.UUCP (Diane Barlow Close)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: gnu awk questions
Message-ID: <1228@cacilj.UUCP>
Date: 18 Sep 89 14:56:53 GMT
References: <16459@watdragon.waterloo.edu>
Reply-To: close@cacilj.UUCP (Diane Barlow Close)
Distribution: na
Organization: CACI, Inc. - Federal, La Jolla, CA
Lines: 35

In article <16459@watdragon.waterloo.edu> achowe@tiger.waterloo.edu (anthony howe) writes:
>I finally tried to use the last version of << GNU AWK >> that came down
>
>	{ gsub( /_\b/, "" ); print }
>
>However AWK keeps giving me an "error near line 1" and quotes just
>about the whole line. What's wrong?

As the person who wrote the GNU awk documentation, perhaps I can help.  GNU
awk was developed to run on much larger machines than ST's and was ported
to the ST by non-GNU persons.  While this is perfectly acceptable (given
the GNU copyleft info), it DOES NOT IMPLY complete compatibility with the
Unix version of GNU awk.

Several people in my local Atari club also tried to use GNU awk on the ST
and ran into the problem you describe.  They found that if they stripped
out ALL the spaces on the command line, awk worked just fine.  This is a
changed made by the person(s) who ported GNU awk to the ST.  Why they made
such a change is beyond me; perhaps they don't even know the change is
there?

The documentation for GNU awk was developed separately from the code, and
is distributed separately.  The manual is very complete and has an
excellent (if I don't say so myself :-) beginner's section.  Some of the
documentation will only apply to larger machines; ST user's will have to
rewrite the manual to fit ST GNU awk's specifics (making it freely
distributable, of course).

I hope this helps.  You can ftp GNU awk documentation from prep, as is
usual with all GNU-made products.
-- 
Diane Barlow Close
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