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From: fitz@mml0.meche.rpi.edu (Brian Fitzgerald)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.shell
Subject: Re: Am I using old-AWK or new-AWK?
Message-ID: <!YV^W2%@rpi.edu>
Date: 5 Jan 91 00:52:58 GMT
References: <BRISTER.91Jan3162556@westworld.decwrl.dec.com>
Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy NY
Lines: 18
Nntp-Posting-Host: mml0.meche.rpi.edu

In article <BRISTER.91Jan3162556@westworld.decwrl.dec.com> brister@decwrl.dec.com (James Brister) writes:
>Suppose I want to call AWK from a shell script, but I need the new version
>of AWK.  Is there a little AWK script that will tell me what version I'm
>using in a "decent" manner (i.e. doesn't just break if run under the old
>version).

If ARGC (argument count) is not predefined in your "old awk", try the
following:

#!/bin/sh
if awk 'BEGIN{ if (ARGC == 0 ) exit 0 ; exit 1 }'
then
    echo "Bad awk version" >&2
    exit 1
fi
... rest of shell script

Brian Fitzgerald