Passing space seprated variables in awk

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

Hi,

How to pass space seprated variables in awk. (HP-UX, sh shell)

I have the problem like below:

var="Hello"
var2="Manu Batham"
echo $var2 | awk -v variable=${var} '{ printf "%s %s", variable, $1}'

and its output is:
Hello Manu

while output should be:
Hello Manu Batham

Please help me to accept it spaces as well.

Thanks,
Manu

2

If you want to pass spaces on the command line, you should enclose the assignment in quotations, i.e.

awk -v "variable=${var}"

But actually your problem is the input read from stdin (by a pipe from echo). In this case, you are using $1. The default field separator is whitespace, so $2 will be "Batham". You change this with

awk -F','

for example to make it a comma. It can also be assigned by awk variable FS. If you want an entire input to become a single field, set the FS to something ridiculous.

[mute@geek ~]$ echo "Hello World" | awk '{print $1}' FS="something that never happens"
Hello World
2 Likes
3

That's great :smiley:

Not sure it's necessary, though. The entire, unmodified line is always available as $0 (unless you modify it yourself before!)

4

Hey neutronscott,

Your first option worked.

awk -v "variable=${var}"

I tried that before, but that time I was not putting it inside double quotes.

Thanks.

5

But yes, in OP's example $0 would be most easy solution. :wall:

My mind just read that he wanted spaces in a single field. :wink: