4

I run the following script under Linux (Mint on a USB key) with GNU Awk 4.0.1 installed by default.

Error returned by awk is the following :

awk: cmd. line:7:               /^Observation/,/^@@@/ {sub("/^N° of case: \\(.*\\)$","\\1\\$"); print}
awk: cmd. line:7:                             ^ syntax error

The script is the following (with "..." replacing some unrelevant code lines that I have removed here) :

#!/bin/bash

...

awk 'BEGIN \
    {
        FS = "@@@\n"; RS = "###-###\n"; OFS = "$"; ORS = "\n"; SUBSEP = ","
        printf("CaseNum$Department$Topic\n");
    }
    {
        # Body awk script
        /^Observation/,/^@@@/ {sub("/^N° of case: \\(.*\\)$","\\1\\$"); print}
        /^Observation/,/^@@@/ {sub("/^Department: \\(.*\\)$","\\1\\$"); print}
        /^Observation/,/^@@@/ {sub("/^Topic: \\(.*\\)$","\\1\\$"); print}
    }
    END \
    {
        #printf("Number of records processed : %d",NR);
    }' input.txt > out.csv

FYI, the input.txt file which is parsed by the script is like the following (with the "Blabla" that can be anything and have any lenght).

...
Observation
Blabla
N° of case: ZX56734562
Blabla
Department: 56
Blabla
Topic: ER
Blabla
@@@
Blabla
@@@
Blabla
###-###
Observation
Blabla
N° of case: RF34678432
Blabla
Topic: TYG
Blabla
@@@
Blabla
...

Please note that some fields can be missing but the out.csv file must keep any fiels, even those omitted (e.g : here the "Department" field of the second record is missing and the out.csv has a blank case)

And I want to get the following out.csv (csv format with header in 1st line):

CaseNum$Department$Topic
ZX56734562$56$ER
RF34678432$$TYG

I know how to do it with sed but I want to use awk. Moreover, I want to keep my code structure (several lines instead of 1 line condensed code, BEGIN and END blocks, and the two-pattern filter in order to avoid bad fields that could be found in "Blabla").

Thanks in advance.

2 Answers 2

4
awk 'BEGIN {
        ...
     }
     # the next line should NOT be within curly braces
     $1 ~ /^Observation/, $1 ~ /^@@@/ { ... }
     {
        ...
     }
     END{
        ...
     }' input.txt > out.csv
1
  • I edited based on what appears to be the original intent. I may have been wrong though. $1 ~ /^Observation/, /^@@@/ is short for $1 ~ /^Observation/, $0 ~ /^@@@/. Sep 1, 2015 at 9:56
0

It is unclear what you exactly want to achieve but here is a simplified version that might suit your needs:

awk '
BEGIN { ORS = "$" }
/^N° du cas:/,/^@@@/ {
    sub("N° du cas: ","\n")
    if($1!="@@@")
        print
}
{ next }
END {
    printf("\n")
    printf("Number of records processed : %d",NR)
}'

With you sample input, its output is:

ZX56734562$Blabla$
RF34678432$Blabla$

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