Hey there,
I have a table of contents file of the form
1 Title1
1.1 Subtitle1
1.1.1 Subsubtitle1
1.1.2 Subsubtitle2
...
and want to count the number of dots in the first field to find out the level of the section.
I use the gsub function for the job, which works if I pass the pattern directly.
The awk program
/.*/ {
count = gsub(/\./, "&", $1)
print count
}
correctly prints out the number of dots, output of the first four lines (see sample file above) is
0
1
1
2
If I try to store the dot-pattern in a variable things mess up. The program
/.*/ {
separator = /\./
count = gsub(separator, "&", $1)
print count
}
outputs
0
2
3
2
Can anyone explain to me what is happening and supply a solution on how to store the substitution pattern in a variable?
Thanks in advance,
Simon
---------- Post updated at 11:31 AM ---------- Previous update was at 11:13 AM ----------
Solved, sorry for giving up that early and asking you. As variables only store string values, the pattern has to be saved as
separator = "\."
and can then be used, e.g. as
count = gsub(separator, "&", $1)
Damn, that was easy 