[PLUG] gawk switch statement syntax errors

Rich Shepard rshepard at appl-ecosys.com
Mon Jul 23 18:02:49 UTC 2018


   gawk-4.1.3 is installed here. According to Arnold Robbins' 'Effective awk
Programming, 4th Ed',  page 154, the syntax for the switch statement is used
in this code:

# Get line length (number of fields)
switch (NR) {
case 36: # No shifts present.
     { print $1, $6, $7, $8, $9, $10, $11, $12, $13, $18, $19, $20, $21, $22, $23, $24, $25, $29, $30, $31, $32, $33, $34, $35, $36 }
     break
case 37: # 1 shift present.
     { print $1, $6, $7, $8, $9, $10, $11, $12, $13, $19, $20, $21, $22, $23, $24, $25, $26, $30, $31, $32, $33, $34, $35, $36, $37 }
     break
case 38: # 2 shifts present.
     { print $1, $7, $8, $9, $10, $11, $12, $13, $14, $20, $21, $22, $23, $24, $25, $26, $27, $31, $32, $33, $34, $35, $36, $37, $38 }
     break
case ?:
     break
}

   Running this code on data results in syntax errors:

$ gawk -f trim-fields.awk test.dat > out
gawk: trim-fields.awk:13: switch (NR) {
gawk: trim-fields.awk:13: ^ syntax error
gawk: trim-fields.awk:14: case 36: # No shifts present.
gawk: trim-fields.awk:14: ^ syntax error
gawk: trim-fields.awk:17: case 37: # 1 shift present.
gawk: trim-fields.awk:17: ^ syntax error
gawk: trim-fields.awk:20: case 38: # 2 shifts present.
gawk: trim-fields.awk:20: ^ syntax error
gawk: trim-fields.awk:23: case ?:
gawk: trim-fields.awk:23: ^ syntax error

   I'm sure it's a simple error on my part but I'm just not seeing the
problem.

   Test data set (test.dat) has lines with each length:

11/24/07 0400 12.12 |0400 2090 0.01| 12.10 12.10 12.04 12.08 12.12 12.12 12.10 12.06 1200 12.00 |1200 1930 0.01| 12.08 12.06 12.07 12.04 12.00 12.04 12.03 12.03 12.05 | 2000 2000 | 12.03 12.06 12.04 12.01 12.00 12.02 12.00 12.01
11/25/07 0000 12.01 |0000 1950 0.01| 12.01 12.01 11.99 11.97 11.97 11.98 11.96 11.96 2400 11.87 |2400 1770 0.00| 11.97 11.95 11.95 11.95 11.93 11.91 11.93 11.93 11.95 | 1860 1860 | 11.96 11.97 11.93 11.93 11.91 11.89 11.89 11.90
11/26/07 1830 11.97 |1830 1890 | 11.87 11.87 11.90 11.90 11.89 11.86 11.87 11.81 0800 11.78 |0800 1680 0.00| 11.78 11.88 11.86 11.79 11.81 11.89 11.81 11.82 11.87 | 1770 1770 | 11.80 11.79 11.92 11.92 11.94 11.92 11.95 11.93
11/27/07 0230 12.05 |0230 1990 | 11.94 11.99 12.04 12.04 12.04 12.04 12.04 12.03 2230 11.93 |2230 1840 | 12.03 12.02 12.02 11.98 11.95 11.97 11.96 11.95 11.98 | 1900 1900 | 11.94 11.94 11.94 11.96 11.97 11.97 11.94 11.93
11/28/07 2000 12.02 |2000 1950 | 11.94 11.92 11.91 11.92 11.90 11.88 11.88 11.86 1430 11.81 |1430 1710 | 11.85 11.85 11.86 11.86 11.85 11.82 11.82 11.83 11.89 | 1790 1790 | 11.86 11.86 11.87 11.90 12.02 12.00 11.90 11.91

   I'm stuck (again) and I don't think this is a white space issue or an
improper newline placement.

Rich



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