CODEWITHSUNDEEP
awk
Tim
Tim

Reputation: 99428

Why doesn't OFS work?

$ echo "a b c" | awk 'BEGIN {OFS=","}; {print $0};' -
a b c

I was trying to see if OFS applies after the last field, so expecting the output to be either

a,b,c

or

a,b,c,

but the change of OFS doesn't work. Why is it?

Upvotes: 12

Views: 5515

Answers (3)

Kemin Zhou
Kemin Zhou

Reputation: 6891

{ print $1, $2, $3 } will use the OFS value regardless of any fields got updated or not. But this solution is not portable. I am hoping other better solutions such as print $WITH_OFS that may be a new feature of AWK.

Upvotes: 4

Dirk Herrmann
Dirk Herrmann

Reputation: 5939

$0 is not modified by assigning to OFS. $0, however, gets modified when you assign to any of its elements, including any non-existing fields.

echo "a b c" | awk 'BEGIN {OFS=","}; {$4="";print $0};' -

gives: a,b,c,

Upvotes: 2

Kent
Kent

Reputation: 195059

You should change/set a field, so that the $0 is recomputed, then OFS will be applied. E.g.

echo "a b c" | awk 'BEGIN {OFS=","}; {$1=$1;print $0};'

Upvotes: 14

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