[wataru]

I want to use variables inside an awk command as follows:

Code:
awk '$1==$MYVARIABLE {print $2}'

so that if the file contains

Code:
foo bar
jim bob

and $MYVARIABLE happens to be "foo" then it returns "bar," but if it's "jim" then I get "bob" back. As is, the above syntax gives an error, and if I enclose $MYVARIABLE in quotes then it just searches for the literal string "$MYVARIABLE." Is there any way around this?

And yes, this has to be with awk. I'm trying to replace my current grep | cut solution, as awk is faster.

[wataru]

Nevermind, I figured it out. For posterity, the correct syntax would be:

Code:
awk "\$1==\"$MYVARIABLE\" {print \$2}"

[[APi]TheMan]

Originally Posted by wataru

Nevermind, I figured it out. For posterity, the correct syntax would be:

Code:
awk "\$1==\"$MYVARIABLE\" {print \$2}"

So it had to do with the single quotes versus the double quotes that you ended up using. The single quotes weren't allowing for variable expansion, eh?

[leira]

Originally Posted by [APi]TheMan

So it had to do with the single quotes versus the double quotes that you ended up using. The single quotes weren't allowing for variable expansion, eh?

yeah. most shells i think work the same way here. single quotes dont expand anything not even escapes. double quotes expand all kinds of things.

[[APi]TheMan]

Originally Posted by leira

yeah. most shells i think work the same way here. single quotes dont expand anything not even escapes. double quotes expand all kinds of things.

Yeah, single quotes are as literal as you can get, correct? What's interesting to me in that awk statement is the escaping of the double quotes inside the awk statement itself.

[wataru]

Yes, the problem was the single-quotes. The reason for escaping the double-quotes inside the awk command is that otherwise awk doesn't receive them; they are apparently used up in ensuring that $MYVARIABLE is sent as a single string (as opposed to multiple strings in the event of whitespace). Unfortunately, this doesn't cut it, so you have to send the double-quote literals to awk by escaping them.