Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!uunet!auspex!guy
From: guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.shell
Subject: Re: awk
Keywords: getline
Message-ID: <4138@auspex.auspex.com>
Date: 3 Oct 90 18:51:32 GMT
References: <8678@mirsa.inria.fr> <=FQ%!2@rpi.edu>
Organization: Auspex Systems, Santa Clara
Lines: 20

>Additionally, if you are using Sun awk, I don't think you can use input
>redirection with getline. The following runs without error in Sun awk.

"Sun awk" should probably be replaced by "old awk" in the above.

"Sun awk" is basically either BSD "awk" (which is basically V7-addendum-tape
"awk") prior to SunOS 3.2, or S5R2 "awk" in 3.2 and later (AT&T sped it
up a fair bit after the V7 addendum tape version came out).  (The only
Sun additions are minor null-pointer-dereferencing fixes and, as I
remember, a tweak to allow "-" to stand for "standard input" when used
as a program file name.)

GNU "awk" ("gawk") implements "new awk", which is the "awk" described by
the AWK book; AT&T also has a "new awk" implementation, available in
S5R3.1 and later and also available from the AT&T Toolchest.  SunOS 4.1
has AT&T's S5R3.1 "new awk" implementation (again, with
null-pointer-dereferencing fixes; too bad the damn 3B2 ABI for S5R4
doesn't forbid location 0 being part of the address space, if it did
maybe all those frigging null pointer dereferences in the porting base
source would get FIXED).