Stupid awk question

[Jonathan I. Kamens]

In article <DMAUSTIN.89Oct10145918 at vivid.sun.com> dmaustin at vivid.sun.com
(Darren Austin) writes:
>Hi all,
>	I am trying to split up a large output file into several
>smaller files.  The smaller files are named after the value in
>the second field.  I tried using the following simple awk script,
>
>(current == $2) {print > current".summary"}
>(current != $2) {close(current".summary");current=$2;print > current".summary";}
>
>but it fails with 
>
>awk: too many output files 10

  Allow me to quote from "Awk -- A Pattern Scanning and Processing
Language (Second Edition)", by Alfred V. Aho, Brian W. Kernighan, and
Peter J. Weinberger.  I got my copy out of /usr/doc on my system.

  Page 2, on section 1.4 about printing, says, "Naturally there is a
limit on the number of output files; currently it is 10."

  A lot of implementations have overcome this limitation.  Apparently,
the version of awk you are using has not.

  May I suggest either nawk (I don't know where/under what conditions
that's available), or gawk (available for nothing whereever fine GNU
products are distributed)?

Jonathan Kamens			              USnail:
MIT Project Athena				11 Ashford Terrace
jik at Athena.MIT.EDU				Allston, MA  02134
Office: 617-253-4261			      Home: 617-782-0710

P.S.  Despite the title you gave it, it's not really a "stupid" awk
question, especially since the man page doesn't even appear to mention
this limitation, or at least not that I could find.