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From: allbery@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon Allbery)
Newsgroups: comp.bugs.sys5,comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: New (UnixTC) awk - warning
Message-ID: <4966@ncoast.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 30-Oct-87 22:32:15 EST
Article-I.D.: ncoast.4966
Posted: Fri Oct 30 22:32:15 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 5-Nov-87 06:30:21 EST
References: <1697@culdev1.UUCP>
Reply-To: allbery@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon Allbery)
Followup-To: comp.bugs.sys5
Organization: Cleveland Public Access UN*X, Cleveland, Oh
Lines: 31
Xref: mnetor comp.bugs.sys5:279 comp.lang.misc:844

As quoted from <1697@culdev1.UUCP> by drw@culdev1.UUCP (Dale Worley):
+---------------
| root@investor.UUCP (Bob Peirce) writes:
| > 'BEGIN {
| > 	stuff
| > }{
| > 	more stuff
| > }'
| > 
| > states on p.22 that "The opening brace of an action must be on the
| > same line as the pattern it accompanies."
| 
| Eh?  As far as I can tell, the pattern is an implied "all lines",
| physically represented by the null string immediately preceeding the
| open brace.  And that null string is on the same line as the open
| brace.
| What am I missing?
+---------------

That the format of an awk "rule" is

pattern action \n

In particular, the pattern MUST be the first thing on the line.  I have been
writing awk scripts with this in mind the whole time that I have used awk;
as a result, my scripts are compatible.  Using undocumented behavior is a
good way to be burned by changes to a program.
-- 
Brandon S. Allbery		     necntc!ncoast!allbery@harvard.harvard.edu
 {harvard!necntc,well!hoptoad,sun!mandrill!hal,uunet!hnsurg3}!ncoast!allbery
"Uncle _who_?" -- Lt. Worf		       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ NOTE NEW PATH!