A range pattern is made of two patterns separated by a comma, of the form `begpat, endpat'. It matches ranges of consecutive input records. The first pattern, begpat, controls where the range begins, and the second one, endpat, controls where it ends. For example,
awk '$1 == "on", $1 == "off"'
prints every record between `on'/`off' pairs, inclusive.
A range pattern starts out by matching begpat against every input record; when a record matches begpat, the range pattern becomes turned on. The range pattern matches this record. As long as it stays turned on, it automatically matches every input record read. It also matches endpat against every input record; when that succeeds, the range pattern is turned off again for the following record. Then it goes back to checking begpat against each record.
The record that turns on the range pattern and the one that turns it
off both match the range pattern. If you don't want to operate on
these records, you can write if statements in the rule's action
to distinguish them from the records you are interested in.
It is possible for a pattern to be turned both on and off by the same record, if the record satisfies both conditions. Then the action is executed for just that record.
For example, suppose you have text between two identical markers (say
the `%' symbol) that you wish to ignore. You might try to
combine a range pattern that describes the delimited text with the
next statement
(not discussed yet, see section The next Statement),
which causes awk to skip any further processing of the current
record and start over again with the next input record. Such a program
would look like this:
/^%$/,/^%$/ { next }
{ print }
This program fails because the range pattern is both turned on and turned off by the first line with just a `%' on it. To accomplish this task, you must write the program this way, using a flag:
/^%$/ { skip = ! skip; next }
skip == 1 { next } # skip lines with `skip' set
Note that in a range pattern, the `,' has the lowest precedence (is evaluated last) of all the operators. Thus, for example, the following program attempts to combine a range pattern with another, simpler test.
echo Yes | awk '/1/,/2/ || /Yes/'
The author of this program intended it to mean `(/1/,/2/) || /Yes/'.
However, awk interprets this as `/1/, (/2/ || /Yes/)'.
This cannot be changed or worked around; range patterns do not combine
with other patterns.
Go to the first, previous, next, last section, table of contents.