Ubuntu – Why does this awk script that runs on CentOS not run on Ubuntu

awkbashscriptstext processing

(for reference, the code is likely also here:
https://github.com/garyexplains/examples
which is probably a better source than a video.)

Would there be any reason why this simple script on CentOS wouldn't run on Ubuntu?

[nsaunders@rolly awk]$ 
[nsaunders@rolly awk]$ awk -f loop.awk numbers.txt 
1 2 3 
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 

[nsaunders@rolly awk]$ 
[nsaunders@rolly awk]$ cat loop.awk 
func printlist(n) {
    for(i=1;i<=n;i++) {
        printf("%d ",i)
    }
    printf("\n")
}


{printlist($1)}

[nsaunders@rolly awk]$ 
[nsaunders@rolly awk]$ cat numbers.txt 
3
7
12
15
16
31

[nsaunders@rolly awk]$

I'm getting:

awk: loop.awk: line 11: function printlist never defined
awk: loop.awk: line 11: function printlist never defined

awk version on Ubuntu:

mawk 1.3.4 20200120
Copyright 2008-2019,2020, Thomas E. Dickey
Copyright 1991-1996,2014, Michael D. Brennan

random-funcs:       srandom/random
regex-funcs:        internal
compiled limits:
sprintf buffer      8192
maximum-integer     2147483647

And on the CentOS machine:

[nsaunders@rolly ~]$ 
[nsaunders@rolly ~]$ awk -W version
GNU Awk 4.2.1, API: 2.0 (GNU MPFR 3.1.6-p2, GNU MP 6.1.2)
Copyright (C) 1989, 1991-2018 Free Software Foundation.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.
[nsaunders@rolly ~]$

isn't awk pretty much awk regardless of what machine you're on?

Best Answer

As noted in the The GNU Awk User’s Guide

In many awk implementations, including gawk, the keyword function may be abbreviated func. (c.e.) However, POSIX only specifies the use of the keyword function.

So the error is possibly because the implementation of awk on your Ubuntu system is mawk, or that something (such as a POSIXLY_CORRECT environment variable) is affecting how gawk behaves on your system.

Ubuntu used to ship with mawk as the default awk - but as far as I know, all currently supported versions use gawk by default. If you installed mawk via the packaqge management system, you should be able to use the update-alternatives mechanism to query/set the default ex.

update-alternatives --query awk

sudo update-alternatives --config awk
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