Awk help - Shell Programming and Scripting

jkl_jkl · #1 (**permalink**) 03-23-2008

Hi All,

Code:

$ cat file.txt
Name    Age     Sex
A       23      M
B       21      F
C       21      M
D       21      M

I can print the 2nd field i.e "Age" field as

Code:

$ awk '{print $2}' file.txt
Age
23
21
21
21

But I want to print in a way that, instead of mentioning 2nd field, I would say "print the field with heading "Age""

I tried something like this,

Code:

$ awk '{ for(j=1;j<=NF;j++) { if ($j ~ /Age/) {print $j}}}' file.txt

But I am struggling.
Please help.

HTH,
jkl_jkl

fpmurphy · #2 (**permalink**) 03-23-2008

Code:

awk -v header="Age" '
BEGIN { col=0 }
NR == 1 { for (j=1;j<=NF;j++) { if ($j==header) { col=j }} }
NR > 1  { print $col }
' file.txt

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