Re: getting multiple line matches to single line for gcc --version

Jeff wrote:

> Im trying to use awk to extract the version of gcc in a
> makefile, but for now Im trying it on the command line to get
> it to work. 
> 
> Since the output of gcc --version is multiline,

Is it?
$ gcc --version
2.5.8
$ 

> Im getting $3
> of every line:
> 
> 4.1.2
> 2006
> free
> even
> 
> for this:  gcc --version | awk '{print $3}'
> 
> How do I get it to just take the first line?
> Ive read the man page and it seems like I need to
> do something with RS= but Im unsure how to make it
> work.  I thought setting RS="" or RS=" " would make it
> all a single line, but awk complains that I cannot set
> RS to either of those.

Don't mess with RS, just exit after the first record processed.
$ gcc --version | awk '{ print $(NF); exit 0 }'

That works for both versions in question.

Ralf