gawk into an array question

[Ben Eisenbraun]

Hi Eric,

> i'm trying to take a column in a text file and put it into an array.

I think you're creating the array wrong:

> -bash-3.2$ head test.csv
> catname1.dat,,catname2.dat,,catname3.dat,
> foo.txt,5,bar.txt,2,me.txt,1
> foo1.txt,10,bar1.txt,4,me1.txt,1
> foo2.txt,15,bar2.txt,5,me2.txt,2
> foo3.txt,20,bar3.txt,65,me3.txt,1
> foo4.txt,25,bar4.txt,4,me4.txt,2
> -bash-3.2$ files=`gawk -F, '{printf $1 " "}' test.csv`  #column of values
> -bash-3.2$ declare -a list_files=$files
> -bash-3.2$ unset list_files[0] #delete first var in array
> -bash-3.2$ echo $list_files

 $ head test.csv
catname1.dat,,catname2.dat,,catname3.dat,                                       
foo.txt,5,bar.txt,2,me.txt,1                                                    
foo1.txt,10,bar1.txt,4,me1.txt,1                                                
foo2.txt,15,bar2.txt,5,me2.txt,2                                                
foo3.txt,20,bar3.txt,65,me3.txt,1                                               
foo4.txt,25,bar4.txt,4,me4.txt,2   
 $ files=`awk -F, '{printf $1" "}' test.csv`
 $ echo $files
catname1.dat foo.txt foo1.txt foo2.txt foo3.txt foo4.txt

instead:
 $ files=(`awk -F, '{printf $1" "}' test.csv`)
 $ echo $files
catname1.dat
 $ echo ${files[@]}
catname1.dat foo.txt foo1.txt foo2.txt foo3.txt foo4.txt

-ben

--
do i contradict myself?
very well then, i contradict myself,
(i am large, i contain multitudes.)                      <walt whitman>