Shell Programming and Scripting

Reborg, neither of them works... I still get the same errors:
awk: syntax error near line 1
awk: bailing out near line 1

Try nawk instead of awk.

The following worked!

echo $b | nawk -v var=$a '{ if ( match(var, $0) && length < length(var) ) { print "yes" } else { print "no" } }'

But this one didnt:

echo $a | nawk -v b=$b '$0 ~ b { print "MATCH }'

Error message was:

nawk: syntax error at source line 1
context is
$0 ~ b { print "MATCH >>> } <<<
nawk: illegal statement at source line 1
missing }

Really, I have to start studying awk (and nawk)...

You are missing a quote on the second one.

"MATCH should be "MATCH"

Yes, I missed the ".
Thanks guys!