Awk field seperator

[Hein van den Heuvel]

Are these questions bulding up on one another? Does this new double match need to occur on the first line, or any line?
If it could be any line, then you need to read on until match or the END. If the END is reached, return other status:

awk '($1 ~ /^[0-9]+$/ && ($2 ~ /^[a-zA-Z0-9]+$/) {print; exit 0} END {exit 1}' tmp.txt

It's time to read that awk man page or book my friend!

hth,

Hein

[Peter Nikitka]

Hi,

to clarify the difference of Hein's solution to mine.

My solution aborts at the first line NOT containing twu fields, where the first consists of digits only.

Hein's solution terminates at the first correct entry with status 0; the return value is 1 when not a single correct field was found.

mfG Peter

[Sandman!]

Not sure if i understand your requirement but based on your posts try the awk construct below:

# awk '/hell/ && !/awk/ {print (($3=="")?0:$3);exit}' file

~cheers

[maliaka]

closed