awk '/^/' empty output (complete command inside)

Question

cat /path/to/file  | awk '{if ('/^TCF/' || '/^FSTL/' ) print $0;}' > /path/to/output.txt

Hi! This produces an empty output, however it does work on a "textedit document", but not this "Plain text document". Other than that, its no different, only that it does not work.

cat /path/to/file  | awk '{if ($3=="TCF1" || $3=="FSTL7T2" || $3=="GLI3") print $0;}'

This one works fine, but I want all names starting with TCF, not only TCF1.

Please help!

When you do a test within an `if` statement you need to tell what to test. Change `/^TCF/` to `$0~/^TCF/` — Jotne, Oct 15 '13 at 11:12

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 15 '13 at 09:17

Instead of

cat /path/to/file  | awk '{if ('/^TCF/' || '/^FSTL/' ) print $0;}' > /path/to/output.txt

you can use

awk '/^TCF/ || /^FSTL/' /path/to/file > /path/to/output.txt

Note '/^TCF/' is wrong, it should be only /^TCF/. Also, avoid using cat as the file can be given as a parameter to awk. Finally, print $0 is the default action of awk, so you can skip it.

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 15 '13 at 09:18

0

This should work:

awk '/^TCF/||/^FSTL/' /path/to/file  >output.txt

The problem with your statement is:

awk '{if ('/^TCF/' || '/^FSTL/' ) print $0;}'

should be:

awk '{if ($0~/^TCF/ || $0~/^FSTL/ ) print $0;}'

answered Oct 15 '13 at 09:18

Vijay

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The `$0~` is implied, so unnecessary, even inside the block like that. – Kevin Oct 16 '13 at 02:43

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 15 '13 at 23:05

Thanks guys! It help me to solve it, but I ended up with the following:

cat /path/to/file1 /path/to/file2 | awk '{if ($3~/^TCF/ || $3~/^GLI/) print $0;}' > /path/to/test1.txt

But, do you know how to:

Include the first row in file1 in the test1.txt output?
And, is it possible to include if TCF and GLI came from file1 or file2?

awk '/^/' empty output (complete command inside)

3 Answers3