nawk and space in the parameter

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

Hi,

Could you please tell me how nawk command works when there is a asterisk <*> or space with asterisk <[space] > or <[space] > in the parameter.

I am just trying to read line by line and fetch fourth parameter separated by delimiter (|).
But if there is a * or <[space] > or <[space] > in the fourth parameter it gets all the files in that directory. How to address this issue..

PARAM4=`echo $LINE | nawk -F"|" '{print $4}'
echo $PARAM4

output for echo comes like that 123 file1.csv file2.txt

2

It's not awk, it's the shell ...
You need to quote the parameters in order to avoid shell filed splitting and filename generation (globbing)!

PARAM4=`echo "$LINE" | nawk -F"|" '{print $4}'
echo "$PARAM4"

Or better:

PARAM4=$(
  printf '%s\n' "$LINE" | 
    nawk -F"|" '{ print $4 }'
  )

printf '%s\n' "$PARAM4"
1 Like
3

second option works good.. Thank you..
if i want to make some kind of string manipulation on PARAM4, how should i do.. like using sed or etc., when i use PARAM4 with sed, i getting stuck with same problem again.

4

We'll need to see a sample of your input and an example of the desired/expected output.

1 Like
5

Thanks,

Here is the script <test.ksh> i use

#!/bin/ksh
LINE="nramak|BFS|121 * 789 * 85#2[123]|7539|"
PARAM4=$(printf '%s\n' "$LINE" | nawk -F"|" '{ print $3 }')
printf '%s\n' "$PARAM4"

PARAM5=`echo "$PARAM4" |  sed 's/\[/ /g'  | sed 's/\]/ /g' | sed 's/#/ /g'`

echo $PARAM5

when i ran it, i got below:

121 * 789 * 85#2[123]
121 test.ksh 789 test.ksh 85 2 123

seems like i have trouble in line#5 while using sed command on PARAM4.

Any idea how to get this done.
Thanks in advance!

6

Try this:

line='nramak|BFS|121 * 789 * 85#2[123]|7539|'

param4=$(
  printf '%s\n' "$line" |
    cut -d\| -f3 |
          tr ']#[' '   '
  )

printf '%s\n' "$param4"
1 Like
7

It works. Thank you very much
Which command gives better performance sed or tr

8

I don't think that it makes any difference in this case.