Re: [bug-gawk] The best way to test the first n character in a file

[Neil R. Ormos]

Peng Yu wrote:

> I want to test if the first n character of a
> binary file equals some given string. I am not
> sure if awk is good at this. It seems that
> `head` plus shell code should be easier. Is
> there a good way to do so in awk? Thanks.

When I have needed to do this, I set RS to match the count of initial bytes to 
be inspected -- i.e., if I need to inspect the first ten bytes of the file, I 
set RS=".........." -- and then attempt to read one record from the file into a 
variable using getline.  If the read was successful, then RT will contain the 
initial bytes.  I use the C locale; I haven't tried others.