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From: norm@oglvee.UUCP (Norman Joseph)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: awk Question
Message-ID: <525@oglvee.UUCP>
Date: 10 Jan 90 14:49:37 GMT
References: <3384@linus.SLCS.SLB.COM>
Distribution: usa
Organization: Oglevee Computer Systems, Connellsville, Pa
Lines: 26

In <3384@linus.SLCS.SLB.COM>, by oneill@getafix.slcs.slb.com (Dennis O'Neill):
> 
> [writing about parsing multi-line records with awk, and getting a
>  syntax error on a line using the gsub() function call:]
>
> {gsub(/\\\\/, "");  print $0}
> 
> [generates:]
> 
> awk: syntax error near line 1
> awk: illegal statement near line 1


On my system (Altos running Unix 5.3.1) there are
two versions of awk, namely "awk" and "nawk" (new awk).
Apparently nawk is the latest version of awk as described
in the book _The_AWK_Programming_Language_ by Aho,
Kernighan, & Weinberger, and includes gsub() as a builtin
function, while plain old awk does not.  My suspicion is
that you are using the old awk.


-- 
Norm Joseph - Oglevee Computer System, Inc.
  UUCP: ...!{pitt,cgh}!amanue!oglvee!norm
    /* you are not expected to understand this */