awk + match string after “=” separator

Question

hi all

I have a problem with the following awk syntax

echo " param1 param2 param3 = param1 AA , AB , AC , AD  "  | awk -F"=" '$2~/AA|AB|AC|AD/{print "passed"}'

The awk prints "passed", but it shouldn't be because after "=" I have "param1" and not "AA" or AB", etc.

The target of the awk is to print "passed" only if the string after "=" is AA OR AB OR AC OR AD.

and if I have something else after "=" then its not should print passed

how to fix the awk syntax?

lidia

Answer 1

You need anchors:

awk -F= '$2 ~ /^(AA|AB|AC|AD)$/ {print "passed"}'

If you want to allow spaces:

awk -F= '$2 ~ /^ *(AA|AB|AC|AD) *$/ {print "passed"}'

Answer 2

This should work:

echo " param1 param2 param3 = param1 AA , AB , AC , AD  "  | 
awk -F"=" -v var="passed" '$2~/AA|AB|AC|AD/{printf "%s",var}'