UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

instead of writing print command in awk, i saw in some posts that we can simply write a number before we end the awk command and it will print the file.

As given below:

Code:

$awk '{some manipulation; print}' filename

Code:

$awk '{some manipulation}1' filename

I also tried replacing the 1 in above command with some other numbers and it worked.
I just want to know what exactly happens when we put this number, n how the command woorks.

Thanks in advance.

Check this post.

Everything in awk has the form condition{action}. If the condition evaluates to 1 then the action is performed. If the condition is omitted then the default condition is 1, so the action is always performed. If the action is omitted then the default action is performed, which is {print $0} . In this case the condition is "1" so that evaluates to 1 and the action is omitted, therefore {print $0} is performed, which is "print the entire record".