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Diffstat (limited to 'gawk.texinfo')
| -rw-r--r-- | gawk.texinfo | 40 |
1 files changed, 21 insertions, 19 deletions
diff --git a/gawk.texinfo b/gawk.texinfo index 1a28e666..84ba0da5 100644 --- a/gawk.texinfo +++ b/gawk.texinfo @@ -67,7 +67,7 @@ Copyright @copyright{} 1989 Free Software Foundation, Inc. @sp 2 This is Edition 0.11 Beta of @cite{The GAWK Manual}, @* -for the 2.11 Beta version of the GNU implementation @* +for the 2.11.1 version of the GNU implementation @* of AWK. @sp 2 @@ -1614,11 +1614,10 @@ to be out of range. (@xref{If Statement}, for more information about @cindex @samp{-F} option The way @code{awk} splits an input record into fields is controlled by -the @dfn{field separator}, which is a regular expression. @code{awk} -scans the input record for matches for this regular expression; these -matches separate fields. The fields themselves are the text between the -matches. For example, if the field separator is @samp{oo}, then the -following line: +the @dfn{field separator}, which is a single character or a regular +expression. @code{awk} scans the input record for matches for the +separator; the fields themselves are the text between the matches. For +example, if the field separator is @samp{oo}, then the following line: @example moo goo gai pan @@ -1682,12 +1681,16 @@ The reason this does not happen is that a single space as the value of @code{FS} is a special case: it is taken to specify the default manner of delimiting fields. -If @code{FS} is any other single character, such as @code{","}, then two -successive occurrences of that character do delimit an empty field. The -space character is the only special case. +If @code{FS} is any other single character, such as @code{","}, then +each occurrence of that character separates two fields. Two consecutive +occurrences delimit an empty field. If the character occurs at the +beginning or the end of the line, that too delimits an empty field. The +space character is the only single character which does not follow these +rules. -You can set @code{FS} to be a string containing several characters. For -example, the assignment:@refill +More generally, the value of @code{FS} may be a string containing any +regular expression. Then each match in the record for the regular +expression separates fields. For example, the assignment:@refill @example FS = ", \t" @@ -1698,12 +1701,10 @@ makes every area of an input line that consists of a comma followed by a space and a tab, into a field separator. (@samp{\t} stands for a tab.)@refill -More generally, the value of @code{FS} may be a string containing any -regular expression. Then each match in the record for the regular -expression separates fields. For example, if you want single spaces to -separate fields the way single commas were used above, you can set -@code{FS} to @w{@code{"[@ ]"}}. This regular expression matches a single -space and nothing else. +For a less trivial example of a regular expression, suppose you want +single spaces to separate fields the way single commas were used above. +You can set @code{FS} to @w{@code{"[@ ]"}}. This regular expression +matches a single space and nothing else. @cindex field separator, setting on command line @cindex command line, setting @code{FS} on @@ -6496,8 +6497,9 @@ This is a list of the variables which you can change to control how @c @vindex FS @item FS @code{FS} is the input field separator (@pxref{Field Separators}). -The value is a regular expression that matches the separations -between fields in an input record. +The value is a single-character string or a multi-character regular +expression that matches the separations between fields in an input +record. The default value is @w{@code{" "}}, a string consisting of a single space. As a special exception, this value actually means that any |