Editing RS

= Record Separator = The [[special variable]] RS is a record separator that is used to determine how [[awk]] divides its input into [[record]]s. == The default record separator is a newline character == The default record separator is a newline character, so by default each new line of data is treated as a new record, as in the following dataset contains 4 records: {{{ Annie 3 Bobby 2 Charlie 4 Dave 3 }}} == The record separator can be changed by assignment or command line switch == The record separator can be changed by assignment like any other variable. This is often done in a begin block, before any input is read: {{{ BEGIN { # Change the record separator to an exclamation mark RS = "!" } }}} The -v command line switch enables the default record separator value to be changed at invocation time. Here we change the record separator to an empty string: {{{ #!/bin/sh awk -v'' '{ print $1,$3 }' /home/accounts/transdata.fil }}} Remember that shell interpolation needs to be considered when passing command line parameters this way. == Changing the record separator in the middle of processing an input file == If the value of the record separator is changed in the middle of processing an input file, then the new value of the record separator will be used as a delimiter for subsequent records. Note that an record currently being processed and any previous records will not be affected by the change of record separator. == Multiline Records == The [[awk]] interpreter supports the use of multiline records, by setting the record separator is set to an emptystring. When multiline [[record]]s are being used, each line is treated as a field of data, and each [[record]] is separated by one or more blank lines. An empty line will be interpreted as the end of the [[record]] and multiple blank lines will be treated as a single record separator. Following a blank line, the next record will not begin until a nonempty line follows. The following example dataset contains two multiline [[record]]s: {{{ Annette Baxby 23 Luthton Road London Bobby Lewis 48 Dockside Row Merseyside }}} Note that blank lines must be completely empty to be considered a record separator. Lines containing whitespace will be treated as part of a record and the end of the file will always be treated as the end of the record. If the last record is not followed by a blank line, the final newline will be discarded. The newline character will always act as a field separator when multiline records are being. There is no way to prevent this behaviour, but it is possible to use the split function to extract fields as desired. == Setting the record separator as a nul character == Note that in some implementations of [[awk]], it may not be possible to set the record separator to a literal [[nul]] character, because [[nul]] is treated as a string terminator in the underlying C library. The causes the record separator to be interpreted as an empty string.

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This change is a minor edit.

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