How to match to a shell variable in awk?

Question

I am trying to match a shell variable with the second column separated by commas. So I've set $INOW to ls and the command looks like this

awk -F"," '$2 == $INOW {print "yeah it's there"}' commands.csv

I have tried putting quotes around $INOW. no difference. How do i make a match to the shell variable?

nu11p01n73R · Accepted Answer · 2016-06-07T15:56:29.317

2

You cant use shell variables directly in awk. Rather you can create an awk variable using -v

Example

$ a_variable=hello
$ awk -v var="$a_variable" "{print var}"
hello

So in your case you can write like,

$ awk -F"," -v inow="$INOW" '$2 == inow {print "yeah its there"}' commands.csv

edited Jun 07 '16 at 15:56

answered Jun 07 '16 at 15:31

nu11p01n73R

I get it, I tried it but it is not working for some reason. It's showing the incomplete command thing. i.e after i issue that your command with makes sense to me this comes up. – Hrishikesh Jun 07 '16 at 15:49
$ awk -F"," -v inow="$INOW" '$2 == inow {print "yeah it's there"}' commands.csv then in the next lines > > – Hrishikesh Jun 07 '16 at 15:49
@HrishikeshBarman You have a syntax error. there is ans extra `'` in the command you have written. either remove it or escape it – nu11p01n73R Jun 07 '16 at 15:57
working now, thanks! – Hrishikesh Jun 07 '16 at 16:11

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited Jun 07 '16 at 15:45

0

awk -F"," '{if($2 == '$INOW') {print "yeah its there"}else{print "nope"}}' commands.csv

edited Jun 07 '16 at 15:45

Andy

answered Jun 07 '16 at 15:37

var

$INOW doesn't seem to be evaluated. because the else part is getting evaluated but the if part is not. $INOW is truthy. – Hrishikesh Jun 07 '16 at 15:52

2 Answers2