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Diffstat (limited to 'doc/gawk.texi')
| -rw-r--r-- | doc/gawk.texi | 12 |
1 files changed, 9 insertions, 3 deletions
diff --git a/doc/gawk.texi b/doc/gawk.texi index 54b21680..7da5048c 100644 --- a/doc/gawk.texi +++ b/doc/gawk.texi @@ -6461,6 +6461,12 @@ Another predefined variable, @code{NR}, records the total number of input records read so far from all @value{DF}s. It starts at zero, but is never automatically reset to zero. +Normally, records are separated by newline characters. You can control how +records are separated by assigning values to the built-in variable @code{RS}. +If @code{RS} is any single character, that character separates records. +Otherwise (in @command{gawk}), @code{RS} is treated as a regular expression. +This mechanism is explained in greater detail shortly. + @menu * awk split records:: How standard @command{awk} splits records. * gawk split records:: How @command{gawk} splits records. @@ -6647,9 +6653,9 @@ sets the variable @code{RT} to the text in the input that matched @cindex common extensions, @code{RS} as a regexp @cindex extensions, common@comma{} @code{RS} as a regexp -When using @command{gawk}, -the value of @code{RS} is not limited to a one-character -string. It can be any regular expression +When using @command{gawk}, the value of @code{RS} is not limited to a +one-character string. If it contains more than one character, it is +treated as a regular expression (@pxref{Regexp}). @value{COMMONEXT} In general, each record ends at the next string that matches the regular expression; the next |