Question

Just wondering why this is not working?

this is my awk code, converting “hh:mm:ss” format to seconds

  a.awk 
  3 BEGIN {                                                                         
  4     FS=":";                                                                     
  5 }                                                                               
  6                                                                                 
  7 {                                                                               
  8     retval = 0;                                                                 
  9     for (i = 1; i <= NF; i++) {                                                 
 10         retval += $i * 60 ** (NF-i);                                            
 11     }                                                                           
 12     print $retval;                                                                
 13 }                                                                               
 14                                                              

 input.txt
 59:22:40

 $ cat input.txt  | awk -f a.awk 
    //<empty>
 $

however, I try it on command line:

 $ echo "00:59:30" | awk 'BEGIN { FS=":" } { retval = 0; for (i = 1; i <= NF; i++) {  retval += $i * 60 ** (NF-i); } print retval;}'                 
 3570

what’s wrong with a.awk ?

---

update just for clarifcation

$ awk --version
GNU Awk 4.0.1
Copyright (C) 1989, 1991-2012 Free Software Foundation.

Answer 1

That for loop is cute, but this seems more direct and easier to understand.

BEGIN {
    FS=":";
}

{
    retval = 0;
    in_hours = $1
    in_minutes = $2;
    in_seconds = $3;
    retval = (in_hours * 3600) + (in_minutes * 60) + in_seconds
    print retval;
}

I think the problem with your loop is in the exponentiation. My version, at least, doesn’t support any ** operator. This might work better for you. Also, be careful with your dollar signs. You need them for fields; you don’t need them for variables.

for (i = 1; i <= NF; i++) {
    retval += i * (60^(NF-i));
}