awk variables

In awk there are many default variables which can be used .
We will see each of them with examples:
acer@ubuntu:~$ cat > record1
John robinson
koren inc
phno:555555555


usha
yyy technologies
ph no:546456456


dddd
aaa technologies
ph no:44444444


acer@ubuntu:~$
consider the above record in which our requirement is to produce a single line for each record having the name with phone no.
In the above record ,the each record is separated by blank line.

For producing we need to
1)change the input record separator(RS) which is default to "\n" to blank line.
2)change the Field separator which is default to " " to  "\n"

acer@ubuntu:~$
acer@ubuntu:~$ cat separate.awk
BEGIN { FS="\n";RS="" }
{ print $1,$NF}
acer@ubuntu:~$ awk -f separate.awk record1
John robinson phno:555555555
usha ph no:546456456
dddd ph no:44444444

Here as you may see from the ouput the each record is converted into a single line.Here $NF refers to the last field in the record.

In the same way we can change the OFS and ORS and change the usual way the ouput is displayed .

In this we change the Output field separator(OFS) to "\t" from default separator space.
and the Output Record separator(ORS)  to "\n\n" from the default separator "\n"

Sample example illustrates the change better.
acer@ubuntu:~$ cat separate.awk
BEGIN { FS="\n";RS="";OFS="\t";ORS="\n\n" }
{ print $1,$NF}
acer@ubuntu:~$
acer@ubuntu:~$ awk -f separate.awk record1
John robinson    phno:555555555

usha    ph no:546456456

dddd    ph no:44444444

acer@ubuntu:~$

Regarding the usage of NR variable in awk.It just prints the record number.
Sample example:
acer@ubuntu:~$ cat ggg
hello life
wonderful
great
marvellous
awesome
acer@ubuntu:~$ awk '{print NR,$1 }' ggg
1 hello
2 wonderful
3 great
4 marvellous
5 awesome
acer@ubuntu:~$

NR can also be used in this way.
acer@ubuntu:~$ cat ggg
hello life
wonderful
great
marvellous
awesome
acer@ubuntu:~$ awk 'NR==1{print $0 ": i am in first row" }' ggg
hello life: i am in first row
acer@ubuntu:~$
"$0" usuage in awk is to print the complete record as from the below example:
acer@ubuntu:~$ awk '{print $0 }' ggg
hello life
wonderful
great
marvellous
awesome
acer@ubuntu:~$
Hope this gives a better idea about awk variables.

Kindly comment was the information useful.



The below table provides overview of all the awk variables available.

Variable	Represents
NR $0 NF $1-$n FS OFS RS ORS FILENAME	record number of current record the current record (as a single variable) number of fields in the current record fields in the current record input field seperator (default: SPACE or TAB) output field seperator (default: SPACE) input record seperator (default: NEWLINE) output record seperator (default: NEWLINE) name of the current input file