Awk if else issues

Question

Bash points an arrow to "else" and says "syntax error" in a provocative whining tone.

awk '{if($3 != 0) a = ($3/$4) print $0, a; else if($3==0) print $0, "-" }' file > out

Why?

score 41 · Answer 1 · answered May 24 '12 at 14:40

41

You forgot braces around the if block, and a semicolon between the statements in the block.

awk '{if($3 != 0) {a = ($3/$4); print $0, a;} else if($3==0) print $0, "-" }' file > out

answered May 24 '12 at 14:40

breiti

Still getting division by zero attempted – AWE May 24 '12 at 14:54
2

@AWE: Add a test to deal with `$4` being 0. – Dennis Williamson May 24 '12 at 16:00
I did, then I awk for it and it doesn't exist. – AWE May 25 '12 at 10:04
Aha! I had carriage return issues. This helped me with it: sed 's/.$//' – AWE May 25 '12 at 11:26
Well sed helped me but I had turned it around $4/$3, $3/$4 still gives me zero division. – AWE May 25 '12 at 12:15
As @Dennis Williamson already said... If your data contains zero values for the fourth field, you will need a test like `if ($4==0) {} else...` – breiti May 25 '12 at 15:45

score 5 · Answer 2 · edited Feb 12 '14 at 02:13

5

Try the code

awk '{s=($3==0)?"-":$3/$4; print s}'

edited Feb 12 '14 at 02:13

Zombo

answered Feb 18 '13 at 06:57

Jotne

2 Answers2