awk and system built-in function

[Mauro Gatti]

Hi All, do You know if awk can runs system commands (using 'system' built-in function)giving as argument of this command the value of his internal variables?

Thank You

[Jean-Luc Oudart]

Hi

If I understand your question you want to build the command within awk script.

You can use :
buf=sprintf("%s %s",var1,var2);
and then
system(buf);

Rgds,
Jean-Luc

[Mauro Gatti]

I'd like to do:

if input line is > alpha beta gamma delta

awk should execute an "chown gamma:beta alpha"

[Jean-Luc Oudart · Accepted solution]

awk '
{
if () {
buf=sprintf("chown %s:%s %s",$3,$2,$1);
system(buf);
}
}'

Rgds,
Jean-Luc

[RolandH]

Hi Mauro,

a simple awk script what will do this is
# cat chown.awk

BEGIN { system("chown " ARGV[1] ":" ARGV[2] " " ARGV[3]) }


ie
onwer: badman
group: marvel
file : comic

than do this

# awk -f chown.awk badman marvel comic

That's it.

HTH
Roland