awk: line 1: syntax error at or near , need some help for bash-CodePudding

here is the code, the CN part is working but awk...

I run function outside and it seems really clear. I just meet the bash :(

windowsearch()
{
    starting_line_number=$1
    ending_line_number=$2
    position=$3
    file_name=$4
    CN=$(head -40 $4 | sed -n "$1,$2p" ) 
    awk -v CN=$CN -F "\t" '{ print $CN }' $4 | sort -n -k$3

}

windowsearch 10 20 2 $imdbdir/tsv2/title.principals.tsv

CodePudding user response：

My interpretation of your intention

you want to sort a range of lines from a file based on a given column.

$ awk -v start=10 -v end=20 'start<=NR && NR<=end' | sort -n k2

just parametrize input values in your script

CodePudding user response：

Your question lacks a description of the task and, ideally, examples of input data and desired output. It is hard to guess someone’s intentions from a completely broken script snippet. A possible wild guess might be:

windowsearch() {
  awk "NR > ${2} {exit}
       NR >= ${1}" < "$4" | sort -k "$3"
}

Example (sort /etc/fstab lines 9 through 13 by mount point (field 2)):

windowsearch 9 13 2 /etc/fstab