What does "|" do in awk command?

UNIX for Beginners Q & A
1

So I'm very new to working with GMT, LINUX, Unix, etc.

I am trying to under the following line:

awk '{print -$1,$2}' file123 | psxy -Jl -R -St0.07 -G0 -K -O >> map.ps

I know the line is gathering the 1st and 2nd parameter for each sample from the file file123. I cannot find anywhere what | actually means.

Probably a dumb question, but I'm ok with that =-)

2

Hi, in this case this is not awk but shell syntax (the awk script is inside the single quotes) and it creates what is called a "pipeline".

Shell Command Language

So the standard output of the awk command becomes standard input for the psxy command..

1 Like
3

thank you very much!