Re: awk tutorial confusion

Ed Morton <morton@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> writes:

>> -------------
>> #!/bin/sh
>> awk '{print $c}' c=${1:-1}
>> ------------
>> 
>> (it defaults to printing column #1 if no arguments are given.)
>
> Thats fine as an example of a shell script, but it isn't a good example
of an
> awk script since it relies on the OS to do some processing. I don't know
what
> the Windows syntax is to accomplish the same thing but the general awk
script
> would be the much wordier:
>
>     awk -v c="$1" 'BEGIN{ c=(c==""?1:c) }{ print $c }'

Yes, but I didn't want to scare away beginners by suggesting this as
their very first AWK script.

As r <inpost@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> implies, there is a fine balance between
assuming too much and going too fast when writing a tutorial. 

I'll make some more changes in the tutorial as you suggest - the best
I can. 
** Posted from http://www.teranews.com
**