page break in awk

[kwasserman]

I need to insert a page break (“\f”) in front of the first header line of a report, like this:

“\f”LP240 Date 06/21/10

I’m using the following awk code:

awk '{sub("LP240","\fLP240");print}' inputfile > outputfile

This works and inserts the page break, but I only want to do this for the first header line. If there is more than one page in the report then there will already be a page break for the next page header, and the awk code inserts a second page break, which will cause an extra blank page to print in the middle of the report. I only want to insert the page break for the header on the first page, and not touch any other header lines for subsequent pages.

 

[LKBrwnDBA]

Try:

awk 'BEGIN{printf "\f"}{print}' inputfile > outputfile

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The person who says it can't be done should not interrupt the person doing it. -- Chinese proverb

 

[kwasserman]

Dang ... doesn't get any easier that that. Thanks!

 

[p5wizard]

and awk isn't even necessary

(printf "\f"; cat inputfile)>outputfile

HTH,

p5wizard