Import variables in to awk.

[Jonathan I. Kamens]

In article <10531 at thorin.cs.unc.edu> warner at unc.cs.unc.edu (Byron Warner)
writes:
>My questions is how do you import csh variables into an awk script.
>for example if I have a file called foo, which contains:
>{
>	print import,$0
>}
>
>and I issue the command 
>awk -F: -f foo /etc/passwd import='hello
>why do I get just a list of logins?
>Thanx in Advance

  First of all, I have never known the C-shell to allow the syntax
"foo=bar" on a command-line to import a variable into a program.  C
shell doesn't have anything like that.

  Second, the only way to do what you want is to actually make the
creation of this variable part of the awk script.  Like this:

% set import = 'hello'
% awk 'BEGIN { import = "'"$import"'" } { print import, $0}' /etc/passwd

The $import is evaluated before awk is actually called, and replaced
by 'hello' (sans quotes).

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