how to pass variables surrounded in double quotes to awk?

UNIX AIX
1

Hi,
I'm making progress on this but hung up on one last detail. I'd like to use AWK to pass the system date and time(among other things) to the first line of a file.

Here's what I have:

BEGIN {TOTALPP = 0;FREEPP=0;USEDPP=0;print "LPAR NAME:",lpar,"DATE:",tdate }

I call AWK with the following:
./diskchartstart_results | awk -v lpar=$NODE tdate=`date` -f testawk4 | more

My results:
awk: Cannot find or open file Mar.

The source line number is 1.
./diskchartstart_results: Broken pipe

Where our date format is:

Fri Mar 24 12:54:02 CST 2006

I then tried to pass tdate to awk as a variable itself:
./diskchartstart_results | awk -v lpar=$NODE tdate=$tdat -f testawk4 | more

Where tdat=`date`, then exported it.

My results:
syntax error The source line is 1.
The error context is
>>> tdate="Fri <<<
awk: Quitting
The source line is 1.
./diskchartstart_results: Broken pipe

So, then I figured I needed to pass tdat with double quotes around it:
tdat=\"`date`\"
root@test:/home/ash934 > echo $tdat
"Fri Mar 24 13:42:11 CST 2006"

but I end up with the same error from AWK. I have the feeling I'm missing something pretty simple. Any ideas on a clean way to get that done?

2

I beieve that your syntax problem is that, for each variable passed to awk, you need to provide "-v"

Try this:

./diskchartstart_results | awk -v lpar=$NODE -v tdate=`date` -f testawk4 | more
3

I tried your sugestion and oddly enough, it returns the same error except now it chokes on 24

Fri Mar 24 12:54:02 CST 2006

results:
awk: Cannot find or open file 24.

The source line number is 1.
./diskchartstart_results: Broken pipe

Any other ideas?

4

I tried it as follows and it works for me:

print "aaaaa" | nawk -v lpar=$(hostname) -v tdate="`date`" -f testawk4.awk

I added double quotes around the date and I used nawk because my awk doesn't permit variables.

5

YES! This works!!! I tired so many combinations, I forgot to go back and use double quotes after your sugestion of using -v for each parameter.

Thank you, have a GOOD Weekend, tmarikle!