If I use single quotes to enclose awk's action statement, it works as expected:
$ dpkg -l | grep "linux\-[a-z]*\-" | awk {'print $2'}
linux-headers-3.13.0-27
linux-headers-3.13.0-27-generic
linux-headers-3.14.4-031404
linux-headers-3.14.4-031404-generic
linux-headers-generic
linux-image-3.13.0-27-generic
linux-image-3.14.4-031404-generic
linux-image-extra-3.13.0-27-generic
linux-image-generic
linux-libc-dev:i386
linux-sound-base
But if I use double quotes to enclose them, it prints the whole line instead of the particular column/field:
$ dpkg -l | grep "linux\-[a-z]*\-" | awk {"print $2"}
ii linux-headers-3.13.0-27 3.13.0-27.50 all Header files related to Linux kernel version 3.13.0
ii linux-headers-3.13.0-27-generic 3.13.0-27.50 i386 Linux kernel headers for version 3.13.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP
ii linux-headers-3.14.4-031404 3.14.4-031404.201405130853 all Header files related to Linux kernel version 3.14.4
ii linux-headers-3.14.4-031404-generic 3.14.4-031404.201405130853 i386 Linux kernel headers for version 3.14.4 on 32 bit x86 SMP
ii linux-headers-generic 3.13.0.27.33 i386 Generic Linux kernel headers
ii linux-image-3.13.0-27-generic 3.13.0-27.50 i386 Linux kernel image for version 3.13.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP
ii linux-image-3.14.4-031404-generic 3.14.4-031404.201405130853 i386 Linux kernel image for version 3.14.4 on 32 bit x86 SMP
ii linux-image-extra-3.13.0-27-generic 3.13.0-27.50 i386 Linux kernel extra modules for version 3.13.0 on 32 bit x86 SMP
ii linux-image-generic 3.13.0.27.33 i386 Generic Linux kernel image
ii linux-libc-dev:i386 3.13.0-27.50 i386 Linux Kernel Headers for development
ii linux-sound-base 1.0.25+dfsg-0ubuntu4 all base package for ALSA and OSS sound systems
Why is it so? Why does using double quotes to enclose awk's action statements produce different results than when using single quotes to enclose them? Can I do something so that enclosing using double quotes works like enclosing using single quotes?
Best Answer
If you use double quotes the
$2
gets replaced by the shell beforeawk
is called. As$2
is usually empty runningis the same as running
Use
if you want to use double quotes.