Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 (Tek) 9/28/84 based on 9/17/84; site zeus.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!genrad!decvax!tektronix!teklds!zeus!bobr From: bobr@zeus.UUCP (Robert Reed) Newsgroups: net.bugs.v7,net.unix-wizards Subject: Re: awk vs. regular expressions starting with equal sign Message-ID: <433@zeus.UUCP> Date: Fri, 14-Dec-84 18:56:12 EST Article-I.D.: zeus.433 Posted: Fri Dec 14 18:56:12 1984 Date-Received: Mon, 17-Dec-84 02:36:27 EST References: <4770@utzoo.UUCP> Organization: Tektronix, Beaverton OR Lines: 15 Xref: watmath net.bugs.v7:179 net.unix-wizards:11079 > There is a fundamental lexical ambiguity in awk: when you see "/=", > is this the divide-by-and-assign operator, or the start of a regular > expression which happens to begin with an equal sign? > > Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology > {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry You can easily get around it by escaping it, such as awk '/\= / {...}' ... I tried this on our 4.2BSD system and it seems to work just fine. -- Robert Reed, Logic Design Systems Division, tektronix!teklds!bobr