dear all,

i have come across a strange/unexpected behaviour of my awk script and i 
was hoping maybe someone could shed a bit of light on this issue.

i have a large number of files from which i extract data using the 
following script:

(FNR==1) {found=0}
($1=="Hold") {output=$3}
($1 ~ /\*/ && found==0) {print output; found=1}

this works well and produces 1 line of output for every file. now i'd 
like to have the filename in addition to the $3 (number). so i changed 
the last line to

($1 ~ /\*/ && found==0) {print output FILENAME; found=1}

which again seems to work nicely. for the first half of the files it 
produces nicely the expected output. however, suddenly it stops printing 
$3 and each time i only get the the filename printed. i checked by hand 
and it should work on all files (=should print $3 for all files).

to verify this i changed the last line, this time to

($1 ~ /\*/ && found==0) {print output; print FILENAME; found=1}

and then i get the result for all files, but now on two lines.

the only difference i was able to find between the input files is that 
some seem to have cr/lf (or any combination thereof) at the end of the 
lines. as this is the only difference i could find i assume this to be 
the cause for this.

could anybody explain why the cr/lf so strongly affects the behaviour of 
the script?

thanks for any help,

tom

ok, i've found the problem.

awk was actually doing everything fine, just as it should.

the problem was that my editor interpreted the cr/lf in the middle of 
the line as beginning of the line, not showing the $3 value printed 
before it.

....and awk still stands strong...

cheers,

tom

Thomas Toth wrote:
> dear all,
> 
> i have come across a strange/unexpected behaviour of my awk script and i 
> was hoping maybe someone could shed a bit of light on this issue.
> 
> i have a large number of files from which i extract data using the 
> following script:
> 
> (FNR==1) {found=0}
> ($1=="Hold") {output=$3}
> ($1 ~ /\*/ && found==0) {print output; found=1}
> 
> this works well and produces 1 line of output for every file. now i'd 
> like to have the filename in addition to the $3 (number). so i changed 
> the last line to
> 
> ($1 ~ /\*/ && found==0) {print output FILENAME; found=1}
> 
> which again seems to work nicely. for the first half of the files it 
> produces nicely the expected output. however, suddenly it stops printing 
> $3 and each time i only get the the filename printed. i checked by hand 
> and it should work on all files (=should print $3 for all files).
> 
> to verify this i changed the last line, this time to
> 
> ($1 ~ /\*/ && found==0) {print output; print FILENAME; found=1}
> 
> and then i get the result for all files, but now on two lines.
> 
> the only difference i was able to find between the input files is that 
> some seem to have cr/lf (or any combination thereof) at the end of the 
> lines. as this is the only difference i could find i assume this to be 
> the cause for this.
> 
> could anybody explain why the cr/lf so strongly affects the behaviour of 
> the script?
> 
> thanks for any help,
> 
> tom
> 
> 
>