AWK Script throwing syntax error on for loop

Question

I'm trying to get this script working to count how many files of type .doc and .pdf are. But I keep getting syntax error on the last bracket for the for loop.

awk: ./parselog.awk:14:     for ($7 in count)
awk: ./parselog.awk:14:                     ^ syntax error

Here's the awk script:

#!/usr/bin/awk -f
BEGIN {}
{
    file = match($7, "/datasheets/")
    doccheck = match(tolower($7), ".doc")
    pdfcheck = match(tolower($7), ".pdf")
    if( doccheck || pdfcheck )
    {
            count[$7]++
    }
}
    END{

    for ($7 in count)
    {
            frequency = count[$7]
            sub(/datasheets/,"",$7)
            minusextension = $7
            sub(/\....$/, "", minusextension)
            print minusextension, $7, frequency
    }
    sort
}

Mat · Accepted Answer · 2012-05-04 11:12:59Z

3

You can't use $7 as a variable name in that for loop. Change all the $7 in your END block to key or something like that.

edited May 4, 2012 at 11:12

answered May 4, 2012 at 10:52

Mat

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3 Comments

ghoti Over a year ago

Of course you can use $7 as a variable name. It's just not a good idea, and the confusion surrounding it is likely to break your code. Try this: printf 'one\ntwo\nthree\n' | awk '1 END { $3="foo"; print $3; }'

Mat Over a year ago

awk 'END { a[1] = 0; for ($1 in a) {} }' => syntax error; awk 'END { a[1] = 0; for (b in a) {} }' no syntax error.

ghoti Over a year ago

Ah, just in the for loop. Interesting. I take back my -1.

ghoti · Accepted Answer · 2012-05-04 11:17:50Z

You can do this with a one-liner:

[ghoti@pc ~]$ find . \( -name "*.doc" -or -name "*.pdf" \) -print | awk -F. '{c[$NF]++} END {for(ext in c){printf("%5.0f\t%s\n", c[ext], ext);}}'
  232   pdf
   45   doc
[ghoti@pc ~]$

Note that this moves the selection of extensions out of the awk script and into the find command earlier in the pipe. If you really want to make this a stand-alone awk-only script (and not shell), I suppose you could do it like this:

#!/usr/bin/awk -f

BEGIN {

  # List of extensions we're interested in:
  exts["doc"]=1;
  exts["pdf"]=1;

  FS=".";
  cmd="find . -print";
  while (cmd | getline) {
    if (exts[$NF]==1) {
      c[$NF]++;
    }
  }
  for (ext in c) {
    printf("%5.0f\t%s\n", c[ext], ext);
  }
  exit;
}

Note that the find command also traverses subdirectories. If you want only the current directory, you can swap in ls *.pdf *.doc and just ls respectively.

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