Shell Programming and Scripting

Hello, I've been trying to figure out how to use variables inside the AWK command and use it back in the korn shell sript.

in my script I have lots of awk commands like this

grep Listen /etc/ssh/sshd_config | \
awk '{ if ($2 == "22" ) print "OK";
else print "not OK"
}'

I need to add a counter to count how many issues/problems I have, something like

x=0

grep Listen /etc/ssh/sshd_config | \
awk '{ if ($2 == "22" )
print "OK";
else
print "not OK"
x++
}'

# ... more of awk commands ...

echo x;

unfortunatelly x "inside" the awk command is different/local to awk command ... is there a way to do thi/

Thank you,
K.

Hi,

you can pass variables to awk via the "-v"-option. See "man awk".

Code:

awk -v x=$x '{print x }' file

To use the awk output in a shell-variable something like:

Code:

x=$(awk ... )

works.

HTH Chris

Chris,
awk -v x=$x ... works great and I'm able to pass the value into awk, now I just need to export it back to the script ...
I can't use
x=$(awk ... ) 'cause my command uses also print command and the counter, is there a way how to export the variable from within the AWK command?

thank you,
K.

The simple answer is no. The awk script is running as a subshell and there's no way to make a child process alter the environment of its parent.

Having said that, the awk process can create a file (say, /tmp/awk.env) with the content where <x> is the new value. In your parent script, you then source the env file i.e.
NOTE: By having the "export" in env file, it's not necessary to pass $X into the next awk call as it's now available in the parent's environment.

HTH

Jerry