Shell Programming and Scripting

I have a set of files of multi-line records with the records separated by a blank line. I needed to add a record number to the front of each line followed by a colon and did the following:

Code:

awk 'BEGIN {FS = "\n"; RS = ""}{for (i=1; i<=NF; i++)print NR,":",$i}' ~/Desktop/data98-1-25.txt > ~/Desktop/numbered-data98-1-25.txt

so i would get something like:
1: XXX:CCCC:XYXYX
1: XTZ:CACC:XYXYX
1: XZZ:DDDD:XYXYX
2: XTZ:CACC:XYXYX
2: XZZ:DMMD:XYXYX
3: XZZ:DMMD:XYXYX
4: XZZ:DMMD:XYXYX
4: XVZ:DMHD:XYXYX
4: XVV:DLMD:XYXYX
4: XTZ:DCDD:XYXYX

Problem is my numbers are not coming out right. When i do a count like:
awk '{RS=""; print NR}' ~/Desktop/data98-1-25.txt > ~/Desktop/Count98-1-25.txt

I get the the number i am expecting for the last set of records in the file: 4959 but when i run the code up above for numbering each record the last set of records shows the end number as 4958. Is this one of those NR starts at zero and i started i at 1 or vice-versa type of problems; or is my code wrong to do what i was trying to do?

Another question i will have, is when i go to start processing the next file to start numbering it's records how do i get the count to start on 4960?

Could you paste some sample lines from the input file as well ...

IN your count program, the Record Separator must be define outside the action code.

Code:

awk '{print NR}' RS="" ~/Desktop/data98-1-25.txt 
awk -v RS="" '{print NR}' ~/Desktop/data98-1-25.txt 
awk 'BEGIN {RS=""} {print NR} ~/Desktop/data98-1-25.txt

Jean-Pierre.

Thanks, i did discover that the missing BEGIN statement in my count program makes all the difference in arriving at a correct count to validate that my numbering program was working correctly.

GIVEN INPUT FILE WITH FOLLOWING RECORDS:

Code:

XXX:CCCC:XYXYX
XTZ:CACC:XYXYX
XZZ:DDDD:XYXYX

XTZ:CACC:XYXYX
XZZ:DMMD:XYXYX

XZZ:DMMD:XYXYX

XZZ:DMMD:XYXYX
XVZ:DMHD:XYXYX
XVV:DLMD:XYXYX
XTZ:DCDD:XYXYX

Using my bad count program: awk '{RS=""; print NR}' ~/Desktop/data_in.txt it will return:
1
2
3
4
5

Using your version: awk 'BEGIN {RS=""} {print NR}' ~/Desktop/data_in.txt it correctly returns:
1
2
3
4

This newbie learned a valuable lesson, the hard way.

As an aside, for others who may stumble across this thread; I solved the problem of how to get the count to start on 4960 at the beginning of the next file by doing this:

Code:

awk 'BEGIN {FS = "\n"; RS = ""}{for (i=1; i<=NF; i++)print NR+4959,":",$i}' ~/Desktop/data98-26-50.txt

I'm sure there were probably much better ways to do it, but it accomplished what i needed done to the records in the next file to be processed at the time.

Thanks again to all of you who have helped me along my way in using Awk to get some jobs done.