$number to awk means the number-th field. To pass variables into an awk statement, you generally have two choices:
1. The ugly one where you do a bunch of stuff with double and single quotes. 2. The "correct" one where you do something like /usr/bin/nawk 'statement AWKVAR1 more statement AWKVAR2' AWKVAR1=$THIS AWKVAR2=$THAT where THIS and THAT are shell variables (such as $1 and $2). Example: export X="HELLO" echo "SDFLKJ" | nawk '{print Y}' Y=$X HELLO Note that you do NOT use $Y in the awk script; just Y. -----Original Message----- Sent: Monday, February 03, 2003 3:29 PM To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L Hello everyone, I'm trying to awk through a text file and use that with a passed-in message to send email. Here's an example of my text file: # DBA's on call [EMAIL PROTECTED] # Lisa pager [EMAIL PROTECTED] # Lisa email Here's my awk statement, which works properly awk '!/^#/ {print $1}' filename.txt prints the first entry in each file and skips any lines starting with #. So I put it in a loop. I don't quite understand all the syntax here, I'm pulling the exact syntax out of Steve Adams' database check script. -- for PAGER in ${*-$(awk '!/^#/ {print $1}' dba_oncall.txt)} do print $PAGER done -- Works fine. Now when I try to pass in a parameter in $1 (which I mean to be the email message), awk grabs it and the script no longer works. Like this -- export FILE=$1 print File is $FILE for PAGER in ${*-$(awk '!/^#/ {print $1}' dba_oncall.txt)}; do print $PAGER done -- This prints the name of the file in both print statements, before and inside the loop. What am I doing wrong? Also if anyone can explain in a nutshell what the ${} means (I think it means consider the results as a variable) and the * and - and $() means in the for/do loop syntax I would be grateful. I'm leafing through my ksh book but I think this is several specific functions all slapped together. Thanks to anyone that can help pull my head out of the sand... Lisa Koivu Oracle Database Administrator Fairfield Resorts, Inc. 5259 Coconut Creek Parkway Ft. Lauderdale, FL, USA 33063 Office: 954-935-4117 Fax: 954-935-3639 Cell: 954-683-4459 -- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net -- Author: Stephen Lee INET: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fat City Network Services -- 858-538-5051 http://www.fatcity.com San Diego, California -- Mailing list and web hosting services --------------------------------------------------------------------- To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).