awk doesn't print separator

Question

I\'m running this awk program :

awk -F: \'{if($1==\"waheed\") {$2=1;print $0}}\' /etc/passwd

and the output is:

mysql 1 118 129         


        

Answer 1

In awk output is seperated by the contents of the OFS ( output field seperater ) variable a space by default. This can be set with -v OFS=':'

awk -F : -v OFS=':' '{ cmds}' file

Answer 2

you can directly use awk command like this :

awk 'BEGIN{OFS=":"} {your code here}'

all codes in begin quotes runs only onetime

and the -v option is for to trans your parameter into your scripts. like:

awk '{print $pid_doc}' -v pid_doc="$Param"

and this $Param can be given from your shell script