UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users

Hi All,
a bit of a weird one here. I'm trying to pass a variable into an awk command, and I keep getting an error.

I have the line

nawk -F"," -v red=$random_variable '{print $red}' $w_dir/$file_name > $w_dir/${column_name}

that keeps failing with the error

nawk: can't open file {print $red}
source line number 1


It's a bit weird, because I actually have another similar line later in my script that works perfectly

abbreviation=$(head -$counter $w_dir/$file_name| tail -1|nawk -F"," -v rad=$index '{print $rad}')

Maybe that's because the output is being assigned to another variable?
Any assistance will be very much appreciated.

Thanks

are there shell metacharacters in $random_variable that cause the shell to interpret things differently?

When I echo $random_variable, which have done while trying to troubleshoot, I get a number - 10, 11 or 13.

I have even tried running substituting the value

nawk -F"," -v red=13 '{print $red}' $w_dir/$file_name > $w_dir/${column_name}


Still the same error.

Don't preface the variabele with a '$' sign:

Code:

{print red}

instead of:

Code:

{print $red}

Regards

$red is perfectly valid if it means, say, field no. 13. In any event the error message is, indeed, weird.

I tried again.

nawk: can't open file {print red}
source line number 1

Echo the used variables to see if they setted proper.

Regards