AWK pattern-code-block syntax: how to run code blocks by pattern in AWK?

Question

Suppose I have a couple of line formats:

this:foo ...
that: foo ...

And I want to run two different routines for one form or the other:

cat text_file \
| awk -F ':' '/:foo/ { # do this } # else print the whole line unchanged' 
| awk -F ':' '/ +foo +/ { # do that } # else print the whole line unchanged'

Ideally, I could write:

cat text_file \
| awk -F ':' '
   /:foo/ { ... }
   / +foo +/ { ... } 
   ...
   /.*/ { print }
'

But things seem to be behaving a lot differently than I expect. Is there a particular way to do this?

Kusalananda · Accepted Answer · 2021-02-10 19:59:34Z

4

You can do:

awk '
    /:foo/ { print "do-things"; next }
    /[[:blank:]]+foo[[:blank:]]+/ { print "do-some-other-things"; next }
    { print "do-else" }
' infile

Note the next statement we used; that is to skip to running the rest of the codes if condition for given block was true; the last block will be execute if none of the two above blocks conditions were met.

edited Feb 10, 2021 at 19:59

Kusalananda♦

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answered Feb 10, 2021 at 18:06

αғsнιη

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glenn jackman · Accepted Answer · 2021-02-10 18:49:06Z

4

I think you want:

awk -F: '
    $2 ~ /^[[:blank:]]/ {
        print "2nd field start with space"
    }
    $2 == "" || $2 ~ /^[^[:blank:]]/ {
        print "2nd field does not start with space"
    }
    { print }
' text_file

answered Feb 10, 2021 at 18:49

glenn jackman

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