awk bug

[John Rupley]

In article <672 at pttesac.UUCP>, vanam at pttesac.UUCP (Marnix van Ammers) writes:
> While trying to install a new program I ran across a bug in our Sys
> V, release 2.1.1 (AT&T 3B20) awk.  In our awk the following pattern
> always matches (even if there are 5 or less fields on the current
> line):
> 
> if $6 != ""
> 
> This does not happen on the awk on my 3B1 version 3.51 .
> 
> Is this a known bug or what?

Could it be a corrupt copy of awk on your release 2 system?
The following code excutes properly with my SysV.r2 awk and
with the new awk (your 3.51 version?):

echo $* | awk '$6 != ""	{print "$6_!=_zerolength", NR, NF, $6}'
echo $* | awk '{if ($6 != "")print "$6_!=_zerolength", NR, NF, $6}'


John Rupley
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    Dept. Biochemistry, Univ. Arizona, Tucson  AZ  85721
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