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From: maart@cs.vu.nl (Maarten Litmaath)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions,gnu.misc.discuss
Subject: Re: Passing variables to gawk
Message-ID: <5138@kappl.cs.vu.nl>
Date: 19 Jan 90 05:01:01 GMT
References: <MIKEMC.90Jan17141246@mustang.ncr-fc.FtCollins.NCR.com>
Reply-To: maart@cs.vu.nl (Maarten Litmaath)
Distribution: comp, gnu
Organization: VU Informatika, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Lines: 25

In article <MIKEMC.90Jan17141246@mustang.ncr-fc.FtCollins.NCR.com>,
	mikemc@mustang.ncr-fc.FtCollins.NCR.com (Mike McManus) writes:
\I want to pass variables to a gawk program via the command line.  According to
\the man page, all you need do is call gawk with <var>=<value> instead of file
\names:  [...]

[and it doesn't work]

Known disgusting bug: the variables aren't set until the FIRST LINE HAS BEEN
READ.  Workaround:

	NR > 1 {
		# do something with lines > 1
		next;
	}
	NR == 1 {
		# do something with command line variables
		# do something with line 1
	}

(In this example either the `next;' statement or the `NR == 1' test can be
left out.)
-- 
  What do the following have in common:  access(2), SysV echo, O_NONDELAY?  |
  Maarten Litmaath @ VU Amsterdam:  maart@cs.vu.nl,  uunet!mcsun!botter!maart