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Hi, I am not a strong awk user and have little to no experience with
perl.

I was reading a thread about how to use awk in a perl script (cause I
haven't figured out how to do the same in perl)

Here is my awk command

awk '$1 ~ /^F/ {print $0 }' /tmp/frhtest/ADDC.bak >
/tmp/frhtest/ADDC.$date

this works fine at the command line. I tried to do this to run inside
my perl script.

$call = `awk '$1 ~ /^F/ {print $0 }' /tmp/frhtest/ADDC.bak >
/tmp/frhtest/ADDC.$date`;
system("$call");

and I get this result
syntax error The source line is 1.
The error context is
>>> ~ <<<
awk: Quitting
The source line is 1.
it generates a zero record file.

Basically all I am doing is pulling all records out of a file that
start with "F" and creating a new file of just those records.

any suggestions would be greatfully taken.

Thanks

wrote:
> Hi, I am not a strong awk user and have little to no experience with
> perl.
>
> I was reading a thread about how to use awk in a perl script (cause I
> haven't figured out how to do the same in perl)
>
> Here is my awk command
>
> awk '$1 ~ /^F/ {print $0 }' /tmp/frhtest/ADDC.bak >
> /tmp/frhtest/ADDC.$date
>
> this works fine at the command line. I tried to do this to run inside
> my perl script.
>
> $call = `awk '$1 ~ /^F/ {print $0 }' /tmp/frhtest/ADDC.bak >
> /tmp/frhtest/ADDC.$date`;

In Perl, back-ticks interpolate variables. Therefore, Perl's $1 and $0
variables are being passed to your awk script, and awk is not being
asked to look at it's own $1 and $0 variables. Backslash each of
those $ characters.

> system("$call");

perldoc -q vars

> and I get this result
> syntax error The source line is 1.
> The error context is
> >>> ~ <<<
> awk: Quitting
> The source line is 1.
> it generates a zero record file.
>
> Basically all I am doing is pulling all records out of a file that
> start with "F" and creating a new file of just those records.

perl -ne'print if /^F/' oldfile.txt > newfile.txt

Paul Lalli

wrote:
> Basically all I am doing is pulling all records out of a file that
> start with "F" and creating a new file of just those records.
If this is what you want, just forget about using awk within perl
scripts, the perl onelier is easy as awk:

perl -nle 'print if /^F/' infile > outfile

you dont need to separate line into columns except that you need to
check contents in a specific column, like:

perl -anle 'print if $F[2] =~ /^F/' infile > outfile

this check if column-3 begins with 'F'...

your awk command can be written as:

awk '/^F/' infile > outfile

Xicheng

I tried this as you suggested and got the following error.

Bareword found where operator expected at ./trial line 6, near "'print
if /^F/' ADDC"
(Missing operator before ADDC?)
syntax error at ./trial line 6, near "-ne"
Execution of ./trial aborted due to compilation errors.

jthrumston wrote:
> I tried this as you suggested

What is "this"? Who is "you"?

Please quote context when posting a reply, as I have done by including
your comments in my reply.

> and got the following error.
>
> Bareword found where operator expected at ./trial line 6, near "'print
> if /^F/' ADDC"
> (Missing operator before ADDC?)
> syntax error at ./trial line 6, near "-ne"
> Execution of ./trial aborted due to compilation errors.

The code I posted was a "one-liner", just as your original awk script
was. It is not meant to be run inside of any other source code. Run
that code directly at the command line.

Paul Lalli

I tried your first line perl -nle 'print if /^F/' infile > outfile

and got this

String found where operator expected at ./trial line 6, at end of line
(Missing semicolon on previous line?)
Can't find string terminator "'" anywhere before EOF at ./trial line 6.


on the second one, does that mean column 1 would be $F[0] ?

ok, so I tried that and it didn't work either. How would I incorporate
that into a script. This is only 1 part of what my script is going to
do, I actually have 11 files to do repeat this action with.

jthrumston wrote:
> ok, so I tried that and it didn't work either. How would I incorporate
> that into a script. This is only 1 part of what my script is going to
> do, I actually have 11 files to do repeat this action with.

I have asked you once already to please quote context when posting a
reply. Your decision not to do this is not making me overly anxious to
help you.

Please go read the posting guidelines for this group. They are posted
here twice a week. Take note of, in particular, effective follow-up
style, and the request to post a short-but-complete script that
demonstrates your error. "it didn't work" does not help in the least.

Once you have composed a message that conforms to these Posting
Guidelines, you are far more likely to receive help in figuring out
your problem.

Paul Lalli

I apologize for not showing more detail in my post. I will remember to
quote more in the future

This is also my first time using the boards. I did not read the
procedure as I should have. I will read them now to make sure my posts
are more informative and comply with standards. Again I apologize for
not being more clear.
Thanks for the heads up Paul.