Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!lll-winken!llnl!ramius!rjshaw
From: rjshaw@ramius.ocf.llnl.gov (Robert Shaw)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: -F option for awk
Keywords: awk field-separator
Message-ID: <491@llnl.LLNL.GOV>
Date: 12 Aug 90 17:12:11 GMT
Sender: usenet@llnl.LLNL.GOV
Reply-To: rjshaw@ramius.llnl.gov
Organization: Livermore Computer Center
Lines: 25

When awk'ing something like a passwd file, where the reasonable choice
of field separator is something other than whitespace, how do you 
let a line simply fall through and be printed unchanged?

print; or print $0; don't do the right thing because the lines come
out with spaces as the field separators instead of the character given
to the -F option.

The best I can do at present is a printf. Something like

printf("%s:%s:%s:%s:%s:%s:%s\n",$1,$2,$3,$4,$5,$6,$7);

to get the colon's back out when operating on a passwd-format file, for
instance

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                                                       rjshaw@ramius.llnl.gov
            _____   ____   ____   ______  
   R o b   /    /  / / /  /   /  / / / /
 -------- /  --/  /   /  / / /  / / / / ---------------------------
         /--  /  / / /  /   /  /     /   S h a w    
        /____/  /_/_/  /_/_/  /_____/                      

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