awk

awk outputs to multiple shell variables

There are multiple print statements in my awk program and i want them to pass it back to shell variables. Is it possible.

For eg:

awk '{ r=10; q=20; rr = sprintf("%04.0f", r); qq = sprintf("%05.0f",q); }'

Can i pass the output of rr and qq into two different shell variables?

Solution

  • I find it simplest to populate a shell array with the output of the awk command:

    $ arr=( $(awk 'BEGIN{ r=10; q=20; printf "%04.0f %05.0f\n",r,q }') )
$ echo "${arr[0]}"
0010
$ echo "${arr[1]}"
00020

    then you can do whatever you like in shell with the array, e.g. populate other variables if you like.