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From: haozhou@acsu.buffalo.edu (Hao Zhou)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.shell
Subject: awk question
Message-ID: <62322@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU>
Date: 28 Feb 91 02:57:36 GMT
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I am using awk to print some selected lines from a text file. What I
want to to is to hold off the current line until next line comes in
and a certain condition is satisfied before printing both lines. So I
need to store the current line in some variable as follows:

	prev = 'initialization'
	awk '{{if (condition) \
		printf("%s \n %s \n", $prev, $0)} 
	      {prev=$0}}'

However the variable prev doesn't store the previous line. Instead the
printf prints out twice the current line. What am I doing wrong?

Thanks for any help on this problem.


	Hao
	
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