UNIX® Shells by Example, Third Edition

5.9. Review

The examples in this section use a sample database, called datafile. In the database, the input field separator, FS, is whitespace, the default. The number of fields, NF, is 8. The number may vary from line to line, but in this file, the number of fields is fixed. The record separator, RS, is the newline, which separates each line of the file. Awk keeps track of the number of each record in the NR variable. The output field separator, OFS, is a space. If a comma is used to separate fields, when the line is printed, each field printed will be separated by a space.

5.9.1. Simple Pattern Matching

% cat datafile
					northwest          NW    Joel Craig          3.0     .98     3       4
					western            WE    Sharon Kelly        5.3     .97     5       23
					southwest          SW    Chris Foster        2.7     .8      2       18
					southern SO ...