Problem with "\"

[fabien]

Hi,

I have the following expression in an AWK script
nocpy= "'.*\.(bri|cmp).*'"

this is to be used in a egrep -v statement

But when I print nocpy I get: '.*.(bri|cmp).*' The \ has disappeared, why?

If I do a simple test
toto = "\"
print toto

I get an error??

Thanks,

 

[PHV]

In your awk script do this:

nocpy="'.*\\.(bri|cmp).*'"

If for an egrep, simplier pattern:

nocpy="'\\.(bri|cmp)'"

Hope This Help
PH.

 

[fabien]

Tahnks but that did not work

nocpy="'\\.(bri|cmp)'"

print nocpy returns '\.(bri|cmp)'

 

[dickiebird]

The backslash \ is one of the escape symbols, which allows, for instance, a . (fullstop) to be treated as that character, and not as a one-character replacement in a regex
So, to escape the \, you need \\, then the \ will be printed.
HTH.

Dickie Bird (-)))

 

[PHV]

And what is the expected result ?

 

[fabien]

my mistake, it worked fine, thanks!