I would like to make an array in bash that uses awk to compare a word to a string held in an array so far i have:
name=( "name1" "name2" "name3" )
num=0
awk -F, '$2 == name[0] { num += $1 }; END { print num }' ~Me/stuff/home.txt
for some reason this doesnt work but if i replace name[0] with "name1" it works fine. home.txt looks like
81920,name1
84985,name2
11000,name3
71111,name1
etc...
Any help would be appreciated thankyou.
awk doesn't have access to your shell variables, especially when you use single quotes for your awk code. To go with the code you have, you could do
awk -F, '$2 == "'"${name[0]}"'" { num += $1 }; END { print num }' ~Me/stuff/home.txt
Above I have written dbl-quote single-quote dbl-quote surrounding the ${name[0]} variable. This allows the shell to interpolate the value from the shell environment into the body of the awk code. Note that to compare the value (using ==) with $2, it is best that the value is seen as a string inside of awk. So the comparsion made after the substitution of the shell variable is $2 == "name" { ...
You would find it instructive to run this code preceded by the shell debug/trace flags, set -vx. Turn off the trace/debug with set +vx after the code of interest.
But better to pass that value in with
awk -F, -v name="${name[0]}" '$2 == name { num += $1 }; END { print num }' ~Me/stuff/home.txt
output
153031
IHTH
awk could easily process all of the list you have mentioned in 1 process rather than calling awk 3 times. Maybe your problem is more complex than what you have shown, and it makes sense to call awk individually for each name, but if not, consider posting a revised question that describes your sources of data, the list to process (and describe it), and required output from those. Including some code will show that you have attempted to solve your problem (as you have done here) and get you help faster.To pass a bash array to awk, you'll have to stringify the array and split it inside awk.
bash_array=( "some data" "with spaces" "but no commas" )
awk -v ary_data="$(IFS=,; echo "${bash_array[*]}")" '
BEGIN {num_elements = split(ary_data, awk_array, /,/)}
# ... do stuff with awk_array ...
}'
