hi All,

Searched forum but couldn't find a solution to this problem:

How can I append a file with date in the ninth line?

ie I want to insert a line with the current date and time in the ninth line.
I tried this:

date=`date`
awk 'NR==9 {printf "'$date' \n"} {print $0}' abc.log

syntax error The source line is 1. The error context is NR==9 {printf >>> "Mon <<< awk: The statement cannot be correctly parsed. The source line is 1. awk: There is a missing } character.

Something like:

awk -v dat=`date` 'NR==9 {print dat} {print $0}' abc.log

This is the error now.
I guess its trying to open a file 04 (todays date)

Donno if this is having something to do with it:
I am in AIX machine

check this

awk -v datestamp=$(date +'%D') 'NR==9 { printf datestamp } { print $0 } ' abc.log

Thanks.It worked

If your awk supports the -v option, you can specify multiple -v options to set multiple variables. But the original script was basically fine; you just need to quote the string properly. Add double quotes around $date and it should work.