Shell Programming and Scripting

Hi Experts
I am facing a weird issue while using print statement in awk. I have a text file with 3 fields shown below:

Code:

[root@gpr ~]# cat f1
234,abc,1000
235,efg,2000
236,jih,3000
[root@gpr ~]#

When I print the third column alone, I dont face any issue as shown below:

Code:

[root@gpr ~]# awk '{print $3 }' FS=, f1
1000
2000
3000
[root@gpr ~]#

However, when I try to put an extra character after printing say a semicolon, I get some weird output as shown below:

Code:

[root@gpr ~]# awk '{print $3 ";" }' FS=, f1
;000
;000
;000
[root@gpr ~]#

Not sure what is going wrong. However, when I try the same above thing with the 1st or second field in place of $3, it has no issues and works fine. The issue is only with the last field. I am working on Red Hat Linux.

Guru

Hi.

You have ^M characters in your input file?

I get normal (expected) output, then added ^M characters and got:

Code:

awk '{print $3 ";" }' FS=, file1
;000
;000
;000

Hi Scottn
Thanks for your answer, you are right. I ran the dos2unix command on the file and then I got the output as expected. However, I have a couple of questions:

1. I created this file manually, not FTPed from windows. So, how is it possible it put ^M at the end?


2. When I opened the file manually, usually we should be able to see ^M if present. However, it was not visible at all, even with set list. How is it possible?

Guru.

Hi Guru.

The answer to both of your questions might relate somehow to your terminal software. I have never experienced such a thing, so cannot really say exactly what happened.

Hopefully someone will come along soon and give you an answer.

It is repeatable (the ^M issue)? If you create a brand new file, does it happen again? If so, perhaps have a look in your terminal settings for something.

Hi Scottn
I think I got the issue. For saving any file, I use the F2 keywhich is mapped to :wq!. My .exrc file reads something like this ( i have an explicit ^M below to get the enter):

Code:

map #2 :wq!^M

It could be that when I press F2 to save at the end, it somehow puts the ^M at the end of every line I believe. However, the same kind of setting I use in my Solaris and HP-UX boxes where I never faced any issue like this.

Do you think this could be the issue?

Guru.

Hmm. I just tried that in .exrc on AIX, Solaris and RHEL, and nothing special happened. It saved the file and quit with no adverse affects.