Re: [bug-gawk] Field separators in awk

[Andrew J. Schorr]

On Tue, Dec 31, 2013 at 09:47:42AM -0500, Andrew J. Schorr wrote:
> That sets the field separator to the new line character (i.e. the same as RS).
> 
> bash-4.2$ awk '-F\n' 'BEGIN {print FS; print RS}' | od -c
> 0000000  \n  \n  \n  \n
> 0000004
> 
> bash-4.2$ echo 'this is a test' |  awk '-F\n' '{print NF; print $1}'
> 1
> this is a test

FYI, another way of accomplishing this is like so:

bash-4.2$ awk 'BEGIN {FS = RS; print RS; print FS}' | od -c
0000000  \n  \n  \n  \n
0000004

bash-4.2$ echo 'this is a test' |  awk 'BEGIN {FS = RS} {print NF; print $1}'
1
this is a test

This is more verbose, but perhaps more clear than saying '-F\n'.

But as I pointed out previously, it should suffice simply to access $0.
There should be no performance penalty if you access only $0.

Regards,
Andy