Shell Programming and Scripting

Hey guys, i am having a slight problem with OFS. I have a database which displays its information like this ,

Code:

John:22:345

I need to read an input from the user and then replace it in $1.

Code:

awk -F":"  '{ $1 = "'$input'" ; print $0 }  ' fruittemp > fruittemp2
mv fruittemp2  fruittemp

the results i get are correct except that instead of ":" , i get blank spaces like this .
$input = Mary

Code:

Mary 22 345

i tried using OFS but i am not sure where should the OFS statement be. Hope for some help.

you will need that in BEGIN rule.

Code:

awk -F":"  'BEGIN { OFS = ":"} { $1 = "'$input'" ; print $0 }  ' fruittemp > fruittemp2

you can also put the FS part ( the -F in the command line ) in the BEGIN.

even this too,

Code:

awk -F":"  'OFS = ":"{ $1 = "'$input'" ; print $0 } '