>From David M. Boulin
address@hidden
Date: 6-24-2012
Summary of suspected COMMENT LINE awk bug:
1) Combinations with # followed by one or more "'" give errors or unpredictable
results as shown below. These include # ' and # '|' , etc.
2) Note:from "info awk": Definition of a comment:
Comments begin with the “#” character, and continue
until the end of the line.
As far a I can tell there are no stated exemptions
on what characters can be used in a comment line.
===============================================================================
OS: Linux 3.0.0-21-generic (i686)
awk version: GNU Awk 3.1.8
C compiler: GNU C Compiler version 4.6.1 (Ubuntu/Linaro 4.6.1-9ubuntu3)
Distribution: Ubuntu 11.10
value of LC_ALL= null initially
value of LC_ALL= C No change to results posted below after setting this and
re-executing the awk script file..
===============================================================================
===============================================================================
The AWK program is in a file called 'testit' which is executable (-rwxrw-r--):
It's contents followd:
awk '
# Prog testit to demo a bug. Change comment line below and see NOTES for results:
#
{ print "Hello World" }
' datafile
===============================================================================
Contents of the datafile:
$ cat datafile
LineFromDataFile
$
===============================================================================
===============================================================================
By changing the 3rd line which initial consisting only of a pound sign # to
the following list of string examples, then execute via ./testit, you
will get the results shown (some spaced deleted in error line for brevity).
Content of
third line: Results Comment
--------- ------- -------
# Hi Hello World As expected
# " " Hello World As expected
#Use '|' blabla ./testit:line 5:$' blabla\n\t{ print "Hello World" }\n': command not found
# '|' ./testit: line 5: $'\n\t{ print "Hello World" }\n ': command not found
# ' ./testit: line 8: syntax error: unexpected end of file
# ' ' No output - no reported errors
# 'x' Hello World - no reported errors
===============================================================================
>From "info awk" page:
BUG REPORTS
If you find a bug in gawk, please send electronic mail to
address@hidden
Hope this has been of some help.
I look forward to your reply,
Dave