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From: ajs@hpfcla.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.lang.c
Subject: Re: C and AWK questions
Message-ID: <40100007@hpfcla.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 13-Aug-84 14:51:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: hpfcla.40100007
Posted: Mon Aug 13 14:51:00 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 25-Aug-84 03:27:44 EDT
References: <134@chemabs.UUCP>
Organization: Hewlett-Packard - Fort Collins, CO
Lines: 35
Nf-ID: #R:chemabs:-13400:hpfcla:40100007:000:876
Nf-From: hpfcla!ajs    Aug 17 13:51:00 1984

> Does anyone know of a way to invoke a program from within AWK, passing it 
> one or more awk variables, and then trapping its output into another awk 
> variable?

The invoking part is easy; just print to a pipe.  You can print variables:

	print foo bar | echo

I don't know of a way to trap the output from the echo, however, except
perhaps in a file (which does the current awk invocation no good).

> Does anyone know how to get input from multiple files simultaneously from
> within an awk program?  

The only way I know of is ugly.  Try this:

		sep="==sep=="			# or some other pattern.

	{	cat file1
		echo $sep
		cat file2
	}	|
		awk '
		(flag == 0) {			# first file.
		    if ($0 == "'$sep'")
		    {
			flag = 1;
			next;
		    }
		    (do stuff from first file here (save data?))
		    next;
		}
		{				# second file.
		    (do stuff from second file here)
		}'