Running awk command and print $1 with script that get arguments - bash

I have my script (called test.sh) as follow:
#!/bin/bash
for i in "cat myfile | awk -F',' '{print $1}'"; do
.....
My problem is that my script receives arguments (./tesh.sh arg1 arg2) and '{print $1}' take the script argument (arg1) instead awk result, how can I solve it?

Your original problem is that you wrote the $1 between double-quotes.
"cat myfile | awk -F',' '{print $1}'"
bash variables are still substituted by their value if they are in a double-quoted string, disregarding the fact that they are between single-quotes inside the double-quotes. This is the reason why $1 is being replaced by arg1.
The second problem is that you want to execute the command:
cat myfile | awk -F',' '{print $1}'
but for this you need to use the notation $( command ) or `command`, the latter is however not advised as nesting is difficult.
So, your for-loop should read something like:
#!/usr/bin/env bash
for i in $(awk -F ',' '{print $1}' myfile); do
...
done

Related

awk issue inside for loop

I have many files with different names that end with txt.
rtfgtq56.txt
fgutr567.txt
..
So I am running this command
for i in *txt
do
awk -F "\t" '{print $2}' $i | grep "K" | awk '{print}' ORS=';' | awk -F "\t" '{OFS="\t"; print $i, $1}' > ${i%.txt*}.k
done
My problem is that I want to add the name of every file in the first column, so I run this part:
awk -F "\t" '{OFS="\t"; print $i, $1}' > ${i%.txt*}
$i means the file that are in the for loop,
but it did not work because awk can't read the $i in the for loop.
Do you know how I can solve it?
You want to refactor eveything into a single Awk script anyway, and take care to quote your shell variables.
for i in *.txt
do
awk -F "\t" '/K/{a = a ";" $2}
END { print FILENAME, substr(a, 1) }' "$i" > "${i%.txt*}.k"
done
... assuming I untangled your logic correctly. The FILENAME Awk variable contains the current input file name.
More generally, if you genuinely want to pass a variable from a shell script to Awk, you can use
awk -v awkvar="$shellvar" ' .... # your awk script here
# Use awkwar to refer to the Awk variable'
Perhaps see also useless use of grep.
Using the -v option of awk, you can create an awk Variable based on a shell variable.
awk -v i="$i" ....
Another possibility would be to make i an environment variable, which means that awk can access it via the predefined ENVIRON array, i.e. as ENVIRON["i"].

Writing an AWK instruction in a bash script

In a bash script, I need to do this:
cat<<EOF> ins.exe
grep 'pattern' file | awk '{print $2}' > results
EOF
The problem is that $2 is interpreted as a variable and the file ins.exe ends up containing
"grep 'pattern' file | awk '{print }' > results", without the $2.
I've tried using
echo "grep 'pattern' file | awk '{print $2}' > results" >> ins.exe
But it's the same problem.
How can I fix this?
Just escape the $:
cat<<EOF> ins.exe
awk '/pattern/ { print \$2 }' file > results
EOF
No need to pipe grep to awk, by the way.
With bash, you have another option as well, which is to use <<'EOF'. This means that no expansions will occur within the string.

Shell - Awk - reading from variable

Is it possible to read for the awk input from variable (e.g. i) instead of file ?
awk 'something' temp
Can the 'temp' be replaced by the variable $i ? Really couldn't find it in man pages.
If your variable is a string, you can do that by using Bash here-string notation.
awk 'something' <<< "$temp"
For example:
$ temp='hello:world'
$ awk -F':' '{print $2}' <<< "$temp"
world
If you variable is a file, then just do
$ cat file
hello:world
$ f='./file'
$ awk -F':' '{print $1}' "$f"
hello
In a POSIX shell without here-string support, you can use a here-doc instead:
awk 'something' <<EOF
$i
EOF
awk 'something' <<< "$i" is just a shortcut for the above when the here document is very short or already contained in a variable.

Passing bash input variables to awk

Trying to pass a variable into awk from user input:
Have tried variations of awk -v with errors stating 'awk: invalid -v option', even though the option is listed in man files.
#! /bin/bash
read -p "Enter ClassID:" CLASS
read -p "Enter FacultyName:" FACULTY
awk '/FacultyName/ {print}' data-new.csv > $FACULTY.csv
awk -vclass=${CLASS} '/class/ {print}' data-new.csv >> $FACULTY.csv
echo Class is $CLASS
echo Faculty member is $FACULTY
Some versions of awk require a space between the -v and the variable assignment. Also, you should put the bash variable in double-quotes to prevent unwanted parsing by the shell (e.g. word splitting, wildcard expansion) before it's passed to awk. Finally, in awk /.../ is a constant regular expression (i.e. /class/ will search for the string "class", not the value of the variable "class"). With all of this corrected, here's the awk command that I think will do what you want:
awk -v class="${CLASS}" '$0 ~ class {print}' data-new.csv >> $FACULTY.csv
Now, is there any reason you're using this instead of:
grep "$CLASS" data-new.csv >> $FACULTY.csv
Your script is not clear to me, but these all work:
CLASS=ec123
echo | awk -vclass=$CLASS '{print class}'
echo | awk -vclass=${CLASS} '{print class}'

Calling Awk in a shell script

I have this command which executes correctly if run directly on the terminal.
awk '/word/ {print NR}' file.txt | head -n 1
The purpose is to find the line number of the line on which the word 'word' first appears in file.txt.
But when I put it in a script file, it doens't seem to work.
#! /bin/sh
if [ $# -ne 2 ]
then
echo "Usage: $0 <word> <filename>"
exit 1
fi
awk '/$1/ {print NR}' $2 | head -n 1
So what did I do wrong?
Thanks,
Replace the single quotes with double quotes so that the $1 is evaluated by the shell:
awk "/$1/ {print NR}" $2 | head -n 1
In the shell, single-quotes prevent parameter-substitution; so if your script is invoked like this:
script.sh word
then you want to run this AWK program:
/word/ {print NR}
but you're actually running this one:
/$1/ {print NR}
and needless to say, AWK has no idea what $1 is supposed to be.
To fix this, change your single-quotes to double-quotes:
awk "/$1/ {print NR}" $2 | head -n 1
so that the shell will substitute word for $1.
You should use AWK's variable passing feature:
awk -v patt="$1" '$0 ~ patt {print NR; exit}' "$2"
The exit makes the head -1 unnecessary.
you could also pass the value as a variable to awk:
awk -v varA=$1 '{if(match($0,varA)>0){print NR;}}' $2 | head -n 1
Seems more cumbersome than the above, but illustrates passing vars.

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