Using awk with NSTask

Question

How would I use this awk command:

awk 'NR>1{print $1}' string-to-modify

with NSTask? I already tried setting /usr/bin/awk as the launch path, 'NR>1{print $1}' as an argument, then the string to modify as another argument but all I get is this:

/usr/bin/awk: syntax error at source line 1
 context is
     >>> ' <<< 
/usr/bin/awk: bailing out at source line 1

Any help would be appreciated :)

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 09 '09 at 03:09

2

What are you trying to achieve? You shouldn't need to launch awk to perform string manipulation.

If you're trying to remove lines from a string, try using something like NSString's getLineStart:end:contentsEnd:forRange: method.

answered Aug 09 '09 at 03:09

dreamlax

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score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 11:59

First, remove single quotes: NSTask doesn't invoque a shell which could interpret them. This is the cause of the error you get.

Second, awk takes a filename as last argument, not a string. If you really need NSTask and awk, the shell command would be echo string | awk ..., which would involve two NSTask and a NSPipe.

Finally, for string manupulation, use NSString instead, as mentioned by dreamlax.

Using awk with NSTask

2 Answers2

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