Using AWK in a bash script

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

So I am a newbie obviously but I need some help.

I am trying to run a script to check that the number of fields in a database is equal to 4, if not they should try again and run an appropriate database file. The fields are separated by a semi colon. I've tried a lot of things, this what I'm trying to fix

awk -F':' { if (NF != 4){
 
        zenity --info --text "The file pathname \"$2\" is not a four  field colon separated database file.\n\nClick OK to exit, and re-run  this program."
}
} \"$2\"
2

Don't you need something so the zenity line runs as a shell not awk command?

3

maybe...?

awk -F':' 'NF!=4{
    cmd="zenity --info --text '\''The file pathname \"" file "\" is not a four  field colon separated database file.\n\nClick OK to exit, and re-run this program.'\''";
    print ""|cmd
    exit
}' file=$2 $2
4

Nawk has system(): Awk - A Tutorial and Introduction - by Bruce Barnett