UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

I have two questions:

(Q1) I am using a loop and want to print a particular field of a table using the AWK command by accessing one row at a time by validating NR with the loop counter. I am using a command like this but it isn't working!

count=1
NAWK -F"|" -v var=$count 'NR == var { printf $5 }' file1

where, count is my loop counter variable;
file1 is the table to search.

I will appreciate if someone gives me a solution

(Q2) I am taking a name as input and storing it in a variable empname
Now, the situation is same as in question 1 and I have used a command:
NAWK -F"|" -v var=$count 'NR = var { printf $5 }' file1
in this case although I am using the variable count=1 for printing field 5 of the first row the answer is given according to the variable empname as if I have used a command something like
NAWK -F"|" -v var="${empname}" '$1 ~ var { printf $5 }' file1

I will appreciate if someone gives me an explanation of this

count=1
awk -F"|" '$1 ~/'$count'/ {print $5}' file1

Hi,

Thank you for your initiative but the suggestion isn't working. Can you suggest something else.

please check the following :
cat file1
1|aaa|bbb|ccc
2|xxx|yyy|zzz
3|mmm|nnn|ooo

$ count=2
$ awk -F"|" '$1 ~ /'$count'/ {print $2}' file1

output :
xxx

Sorry, I should have given a bit of detail. My file is like this
CAT file1
abc |123 |abc123
bcd |234 |bcd234
cde |345 |cde345

In such a situation the command will not work. I want to extract one field from this file by scrolling through its individual lines which I want to do within a loop.

I also would like to ask something on your feedback too:
Now considering I upgrade my file as you suggested like
CAT file1
1 |abc |123 |abc123
2 |bcd |234 |bcd234
3 |cde |345 |cde345
.
.
100 |uvw |999 |uvw999
In this situation also your command will give erronous results. What should I do in such a situation?

I also tried with a slight modification of your command

AWK -F"|" '$1 == /'$count'/ {prinf $4}' file1

but this didn't work either

In my case the following command is working fine :
$ count=2
$ awk -F"|" '$1 ~ /'$count'/ {prinf $4}' file1

The below mentioned command won't work :
awk -F"|" '$1 == /'$count'/ {prinf $4}' file1
== won't work.

Please try the first command and send the error details.