Searching word in a file with awk

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

Hello everyone!

I use a script to query for installed packages with yum (I use RHEL 4 with yum installed) and the output is redirected to a file. My script scan this file to find a package and the version of it.

The script works fine until I search for a package name with special characters. So if I search for gcc.x86_64 I get all the info I need but if I search for gcc-c++.x86_64. I don't get anything.

My search string looks like this :

version=$(awk '/^gcc.x86_64/ { print $2}' /tmp/yum_output.txt)

The ouput of yum is :

Setting up repositories
Reading repository metadata in from local files
Installed Packages
gcc.x86_64                               3.4.6-3                installed

So if I echo version, I get this :

# version=$(awk '/^gcc.x86_64/ { print $2}' /tmp/yum_output.txt)
# echo $version
3.4.6-3
#

When I do the same thing with gcc-c++.x86_64, I get nothing if I echo version.

# version=$(awk '/^gcc-c++.x86_64/ { print $2}' /tmp/yum_output.txt)
# echo $version

#

Is there any way I can get this to work?

2

Try escaping the plus sign:

version=$(awk '/^gcc-c\+\+\.x86_64/ { print $2}' /tmp/yum_output.txt)
3

Try to escape the plus sign:

version=$(awk '/^gcc-c\+\+.x86_64/ { print $2}' /tmp/yum_output.txt)
4

Thanks a lot! works perfectly!