Bug in GNU gawk - matching initial space in RE

[Barry Zeeberg]

GNU gawk, but not awk from Brian Kernighan
(http://www.cs.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/awkbook/index.html), fails to match
initial space in RE (C shell on Solaris):

Here are the relevant test, text file, and output:

discover 6% head *
==> gawk.bug.demo.sh <==
#!/bin/csh

/array2/user/barry/gawk-3.1.3/gawk '{if($0 ~ /^ \<biological_process
;/)print $0}' gawk.bug.textfile
/array2/user/barry/awk.kernighan.dir/awk '{if($0 ~ /^ \<biological_process
;/)print $0}' gawk.bug.textfile

==> gawk.bug.textfile <==
 <biological_process ; GO:0008150

discover 7% csh -xvf gawk.bug.demo.sh


/array2/user/barry/gawk-3.1.3/gawk '{if($0 ~ /^ \<biological_process
;/)print $0}' gawk.bug.textfile
/array2/user/barry/gawk-3.1.3/gawk {if($0 ~ /^ \<biological_process ;/)print
$0} gawk.bug.textfile
/array2/user/barry/awk.kernighan.dir/awk '{if($0 ~ /^ \<biological_process
;/)print $0}' gawk.bug.textfile
/array2/user/barry/awk.kernighan.dir/awk {if($0 ~ /^ \<biological_process
;/)print $0} gawk.bug.textfile
 <biological_process ; GO:0008150
discover 8% 

Sincerely,
Barry Zeeberg
NIH/NCI/LMP
301-402-2729