Shell Programming and Scripting

Hi
I have tried this command
cat /etc/passwd | awk -F: '{print$5}'

note that the $5 is the column that displays full name- i.e. Kevin Kambell

To the point, my output is fine except one thing I do not understand that some of output lines have space in front of them which I checked in /etc/passwd and there were no space before those names.

For example:
Matt damon
Ben Jones
-Kevin Kambell
Steward Note
Joke Chain
-William Ink

(Note that "-" is the space in the real output

However, the output has no space if I use the command:
awk -F: '{print$5}' /etc/passwd

the output was shown as follows:

Matt damon
Ben Jones
Kevin Kambell
Steward Note
Joke Chain
William Ink


Thanks a lot

This is called as UUOC - Useless Use of Cat

As you have used, it could just go with

Code:

awk -F":" '{ print $5 }' /etc/passwd

Thanks but I would like to know why this happens.
I can't figure it out where those blanks come from.

cheers

The space in your output means that for few of the lines in the /etc/passwd file there is no 5th field defined.

Check the file...

Thats because u changed the Fs to : , check this:

Code:

echo "ddf: sasa"|awk -F\: '{print ">>"$1"<<>>"$2"<<"}'

I tried this and I saw the blank before sasa. What does it come from?
I am sorry. I am very new to awk.

Moreover, I also tried

awk -F: '{print $5}' /etc/passwd | sort

some blanks occur again