Question

I try searching a file by using awk. How can I ask awk to read a variable from the command line as a name to get searched in the file:

this is a regular way I use to search the file and I can ask the user to enter a name to search in the file.txt

awk -f myAwk.awk file.txt

How can I manage it like this :

awk -f myAwk.awk file.txt nameToSearch

How can I use ARGC and ARGV to search the nameToSearch in the file.txt?

Answer 1

What you’re probably looking for is

awk [-W option] [-F value] [-v var=value] [--] 'program text' [file ...]

so

awk -v MYVAR=nameToSearch -v OTHERVAR=somethingElse -f myAwk.awk file.txt

Is that it? of course order of switches ( -f, -v ) does not matter. Obvously you then need to include MYVAR ( OTHERVAR ) for a variable identifier inside awk program itself.