8 Powerful Awk Built-in Variables – FS, OFS, RS,

ORS, NR, NF, FILENAME, FNR

by SASIKALA on JANUARY 27, 2010

This article is part of the on-goingAwk

Tutorial Examples series. Awk has several powerful built-in variables. There are two
types of built-in variables in Awk.
1. Variable which defines values which can be changed such as field separator and
record separator.
2. Variable which can be used for processing and reports such as Number of
records, number of fields.

1. Awk FS Example: Input field separator variable.

Awk reads and parses each line from input based on whitespace character by default and
set the variables $1,$2 and etc. Awk FS variable is used to set the field separator for each
record. Awk FS can be set to any single character or regular expression. You can use
input field separator using one of the following two options:

1. Using -F command line option.

2. Awk FS can be set like normal variable.

Syntax:

$ awk -F 'FS' 'commands' inputfilename

(or)

$ awk 'BEGIN{FS="FS";}'

 Awk FS is any single character or regular expression which you want to use as a
input field separator.
 Awk FS can be changed any number of times, it retains its values until it is
explicitly changed. If you want to change the field separator, its better to change
before you read the line. So that change affects the line what you read.
Here is an awk FS example to read the /etc/passwd file which has “:” as field delimiter.

$ cat etc_passwd.awk

BEGIN{

FS=":";

print "Name\tUserID\tGroupID\tHomeDirectory";

print $1"\t"$3"\t"$4"\t"$6;

}
END {

print NR,"Records Processed";

$awk -f etc_passwd.awk /etc/passwd

Name UserID GroupID HomeDirectory

gnats 41 41 /var/lib/gnats

libuuid 100 101 /var/lib/libuuid

syslog 101 102 /home/syslog

hplip 103 7 /var/run/hplip

avahi 105 111 /var/run/avahi-daemon

saned 110 116 /home/saned

pulse 111 117 /var/run/pulse

gdm 112 119 /var/lib/gdm

8 Records Processed

2. Awk OFS Example: Output Field Separator Variable

Awk OFS is an output equivalent of awk FS variable. By default awk OFS is a single
space character. Following is an awk OFS example.
$ awk -F':' '{print $3,$4;}' /etc/passwd

41 41

100 101

101 102

103 7

105 111

110 116

111 117

112 119

Concatenator in the print statement “,” concatenates two parameters with a space which
is the value of awk OFS by default. So, Awk OFS value will be inserted between fields in
the output as shown below.

$ awk -F':' 'BEGIN{OFS="=";} {print $3,$4;}' /etc/passwd

41=41

100=101

101=102

103=7
105=111

110=116

111=117

112=119

3. Awk RS Example: Record Separator variable

Awk RS defines a line. Awk reads line by line by default.
Let us take students marks are stored in a file, each records are separated by double new
line, and each fields are separated by a new line character.

$cat student.txt

Jones

2143

78

84

77

Gondrol

2321
56

58

45

RinRao

2122

38

37

65

Edwin

2537

78

67

45
Dayan

2415

30

47

20

Now the below Awk script prints the Student name and Rollno from the above input file.

$cat student.awk

BEGIN {

RS="\n\n";

FS="\n";

print $1,$2;

}
$ awk -f student.awk student.txt

Jones 2143

Gondrol 2321

RinRao 2122

Edwin 2537

Dayan 2415

In the script student.awk, it reads each student detail as a single record,because awk RS
has been assigned to double new line character and each line in a record is a field, since
FS is newline character.

4. Awk ORS Example: Output Record Separator Variable

Awk ORS is an Output equivalent of RS. Each record in the output will be printed with
this delimiter. Following is an awk ORS example:

$ awk 'BEGIN{ORS="=";} {print;}' student-marks

Jones 2143 78 84 77=Gondrol 2321 56 58 45=RinRao 2122 38 37 65=Edwin 2537 78 67

45=Dayan 2415 30 47 20=

In the above script,each records in the file student-marks file is delimited by the
character “=”.

5. Awk NR Example: Number of Records Variable

Awk NR gives you the total number of records being processed or line number. In the
following awk NR example, NR variable has line number, in the END section awk NR
tells you the total number of records in a file.

$ awk '{print "Processing Record - ",NR;}END {print NR, "Students Records are
processed";}' student-marks

Processing Record - 1

Processing Record - 2

Processing Record - 3

Processing Record - 4

Processing Record - 5

5 Students Records are processed

6. Awk NF Example: Number of Fields in a record

Awk NF gives you the total number of fields in a record. Awk NF will be very useful for
validating whether all the fields are exist in a record.
Let us take in the student-marks file, Test3 score is missing for to students as shown
below.

$cat student-marks

Jones 2143 78 84 77

Gondrol 2321 56 58 45
RinRao 2122 38 37

Edwin 2537 78 67 45

Dayan 2415 30 47

The following Awk script, prints Record(line) number, and number of fields in that
record. So It will be very simple to find out that Test3 score is missing.

$ awk '{print NR,"->",NF}' student-marks

1 -> 5

2 -> 5

3 -> 4

4 -> 5

5 -> 4

7. Awk FILENAME Example: Name of the current input file

FILENAME variable gives the name of the file being read. Awk can accept number of
input files to process.

$ awk '{print FILENAME}' student-marks

student-marks
student-marks

student-marks

student-marks

student-marks

In the above example, it prints the FILENAME i.e student-marks for each record of the
input file.

8. Awk FNR Example: Number of Records relative to the current

input file
When awk reads from the multiple input file, awk NR variable will give the total number
of records relative to all the input file. Awk FNR will give you number of records for
each input file.

$ awk '{print FILENAME, FNR;}' student-marks bookdetails

student-marks 1

student-marks 2

student-marks 3

student-marks 4

student-marks 5

bookdetails 1
bookdetails 2

bookdetails 3

bookdetails 4

bookdetails 5

In the above example, instead of awk FNR, if you use awk NR, for the file bookdetails
the you will get from 6 to 10 for each record.