column count in awk

[Christian Marquardt_1]

Hello,
I've a script with awk reading lines from a file. Sometimes the line has 9 columns, sometimes 8.
Does anyone know how to get the total number of the columns in the actually read line???
Is there any variable like $? ....????

Kind regards
Christian

[Peter Godron · Accepted solution]

Christian,
NF is the one.
Example:
awk '{ for (i = NF; i > 0; --i) print $i }' file

Print columns in reverse order

[spex]

Hi Christian,

awk '{print NF}'
PCS

[Christian Marquardt_1]

Thanks a lot ... that's what I need!

kind regards
Christian

[Christian Marquardt_1]

everything is cool