UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Feed it in with -v like shown above.

Code:

awk -v VARNAME="${SHELLVAR}" ...

Understood... but again... I am forced to stand behind the statement I made earlier. You use what you must use. But you are right in that the majority case, your soln will work... mine works with that and everywhere else (just saying....).

The problem is that '{ VAR='"$var"' and -v VAR="$VAR" really aren't equivalent. It's not a matter of taste.

Imagine what would happen if $var was set to "\"; system(\"rm -Rf ~/*\");" -- awk would evaluate that.

A rather extreme example admittedly. More likely unintentional problems would involve syntax errors caused by quote characters, and so forth.

I like you... so what you are saying it's best to use -v when it's not available for use. Granted, a person can jump off of a cliff if they want... not really trying to suggest that somebody would do that. I mean, using your logic, why type awk at all... just type rm -rf *... right? Just saying.... can we end this? I think I said VERY clearly that I understand your point. And I was just pointing out that -v isn't going to work for every awk implementation out there... right? Is there REALLY something more to add?? I even said use -v if it's available, right? Is there a reason why that wasn't good enough for you? Do you want me to lie? Should I say, "gee, you're right, you HAVE to use -v... even when it's not available?"

Let's close this thread please... I've had enough... haven't you?