How to escape single quote ?? 1

[nnxx]

Hello experts,
Any idea how to substitute a character with a single quote "'" in awk ?

If I use gsub, for example ..
gsub(/out/, "in", $0)
this replaces "out" with "in". But if I want to replace "out" with "'" instead, it obviously gives an error since it thinks its EOF.

I've tried "\'" too. Any clues ?

Thanks!
nnxx

 

[PHV]

it obviously gives an error since it thinks its EOF
???
Either you don't know the -f option or you don't play well with the shell quoting mechanism ...
Could you please post an example of such hard gsub ?

Hope This Helps, PH.
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[nnxx]

Hi PHV,
Thanks for the quick response. My usage is pretty simple, maybe too simple. I have the following in a text file and I simply run it from cmd line...

gawk '{if(substr($0,1,1)=="c") {gsub(/out/, "\'", $0); print $0;} else print }' infile > outfile

How can -f help ?

Thanks!
nnxx

 

[PHV]

Shell quoting
Replace this [tt]"[!]\'[/!]",[/tt]
with this [tt]"[!]'"'"'[/!]",[/tt]

-f option
create an awk program in a file named, say, infile.awk[tt]
{ if(substr($0,1,1)=="c") {
gsub(/out/, [!]"'"[/!], $0); print $0
} else print
}
[/tt]
And then your shell script:
gawk -f infile.awk infile > outfile

Hope This Helps, PH.
Want to get great answers to your Tek-Tips questions? Have a look at FAQ219-2884 or FAQ181-2886

 

[nnxx]

Hi PH,
Thanks for your suggestions. I don't know if its my gawk version (3.1.1), but neither approach is working for me. Anyway, I'll spend some more time debugging this.

Thanks again.
Nitin.

 

[PHV]

but neither approach is working for me
what happen ? error message ? computer crash ? unexpected result ?

Could you please just copy/paste the following line at a shell prompt ?
gawk '/^c/{gsub(/out/,"'"'"'")}1' infile>outfile

Hope This Helps, PH.
Want to get great answers to your Tek-Tips questions? Have a look at FAQ219-2884 or FAQ181-2886

 

[nnxx]

That's brilliant! It works.

I like how efficient your suggestion is. I guess you must be writing awk code more than 2-3 lines every 2 years

Thanks again!
nnxx

 

[bigoldbulldog]

Here's a method I sometimes use. Normally I'd use a variable, e.g., BEGIN{ QT=sprintf("%c",39) }...

awk '/^c/{gsub( /out/, sprintf( "%c", 39 ))} 1'

sed makes this easy, too. E.g.

sed "/^c/ s/out/'/g"

Cheers,
ND