Linux Shells by Example

7.14. Review

7.14.1. String Functions

% cat datafile
						northwest     NW     Joel Craig       3.0     .98     3      4
						western       WE     Sharon Kelly     5.3     .97     5     23
						southwest     SW     Chris Foster     2.7     .8      2     18
						southern      SO     May Chin         5.1     .95     4     15
						southeast     SE     Derek Johnson    4.0     .7      4     17
						eastern       EA     Susan Beal       4.4     .84     5     20
						northeast     NE     TJ Nichols       5.1     .94     3     13
						north         NO     Val Shultz       4.5     .89     5      9
						central       CT     Sheri Watson     5.7     .94     5     13
					

Example 7.94.

% awk 'NR==1{gsub(/northwest/,"southeast", $1) ;print}' datafile southeast NW Joel Craig 3.0 .98 3 4

Explanation

If this is the first record (NR == 1), globally substitute the regular expression northwest with southeast, if northwest is found in the first field.

Example 7.95.

% awk 'NR==1{print substr($3, 1, 3)} ' datafile Joe

Explanation

If this ...