boi@richsun.cpg.trs.reuter.com (Ken Boi) (08/11/90)
According to the book "The AWK Programming Language", there
are built-in string functions. One of them is 'gsub'. I have
tried using it with the following comand line statement which
is very close to the example in the book:
awk '{ gsub(/USA/, "United States"); print }' awkdata
where 'awkdata' is any text file. I get the error messages:
awk: syntax error near line 1
awk: illegal statement near line 1
Anybody know why?gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn) (08/13/90)
In article <972@richsun.cpg.trs.reuter.com> boi@richsun.cpg.trs.reuter.com (Ken Boi) writes: >According to the book "The AWK Programming Language", there >are built-in string functions. One of them is 'gsub'. I have >tried using it with the following comand line statement which >is very close to the example in the book: > awk '{ gsub(/USA/, "United States"); print }' awkdata >where 'awkdata' is any text file. I get the error messages: > awk: syntax error near line 1 > awk: illegal statement near line 1 >Anybody know why? Sure -- your version of "awk" is an old one that doesn't support that feature. Except for the first chapter or so of the AWK book, the examples depend on having a more modern version of awk. If you have a command "nawk" try using that. Otherwise, you can obtain the new flavor of awk from the AT&T UNIX System ToolChest, or from UNIX System V Release 3.2 or later, or a (supposedly) functionally equivalent utility called "gawk" from the GNU project.
norm@oglvee.UUCP (Norman Joseph) (08/13/90)
In <972@richsun.cpg.trs.reuter.com>, boi@richsun.cpg.trs.reuter.com (Ken Boi) writes: >According to the book "The AWK Programming Language", there >are built-in string functions. One of them is 'gsub'. I have >tried using it with the following comand line statement which >is very close to the example in the book: > [...] >I get the error messages: > awk: syntax error near line 1 > awk: illegal statement near line 1 >Anybody know why? The awk you are running on your system (you don't tell us what you have) is an earlier version of the one described in _The_AWK_Programming_Language_, which is a (relatively) recent update. If your system is like some, you may have the new version of awk listed under the name "nawk" (new awk). -- Norm Joseph cgh!amanue!oglvee!norm@dsi.com Oglevee Computer Systems, Inc. {pitt,cgh}!amanue!oglvee!norm "Shucking Usenet oysters in pursuit of a pearl." -- Bill Kennedy
guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris) (08/15/90)
>Otherwise, you can obtain the new flavor of awk from the AT&T UNIX >System ToolChest, or from UNIX System V Release 3.2 or later, It first appeared in S5R3.1.