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awktcshquoting

Alias for awk command

How do I create an alias for awk command in

awk '{$1="";$2="";$3="";$4="";$5="";print}'

in tcshrc ?

I tried like this:

alias crd='awk '\''{$1=\"\";$2=\"\";$3=\"\";$4=\"\";$5=\"\";print}'\'''

but did not work

Solution

  • Your problem may just be that your backslash finger is too heavy. Double quotes inside the single quoted string do not need to be escaped unless they're part of a double-quoted string that is inside the single quotes.

    But it may also be that you're confusing the bash alias command with the tcsh alias command. Bash notation looks like:

    alias thing=command

    whereas tcsh looks like:

    alias thing command

    Note the subtle difference. :-)

    The following generates no errors for me:

    % alias crd 'awk '\''{$1="";$2="";$3="";$4="";$5="";print}'\'''

    The alias even seems to be functional:

    % seq -s\  1 8 | crd
     6 7 8

    You might also find this answer useful, if your goal is actually to remove columns rather than just nullify content.