I am new to awk and have seen some coding in awk with "next" appearing at the end of the actions like;

/EXPRESSION/ { variable=5; next}
/EXPRESSION2/ {variable2=6; next}

I was wondering if it would make a difference when I left out the next commands?

I know that next makes awk read the next line and start with the script from beginning, but exactly that happens even if I leave out "next", right?



thank in anticipation for your ideas.

The script will continue using the same line of input text.

So, using your exampleSay, the current line of text matches EXPRESSION. Then the next line of text will be read, on which the script will start processing from the start.

So the second line of code will not be executed when EXPRESSION matches the current line. Thus variable2 will never be assigned 6, even if EXPRESSION2 matches the same line.

If this script is the whole script, "next" in the last line of code will not make a difference, as after executing the last line of the script, awk will start the script from the start on the next line of text anyways.

Hko,

thanks for reply. You are right the "next" in second line would not make sense if it was the whole script. But I am going through a bigger script and just quoted the appropriate lines.

Now, I got the idea. thanks again... and stay cool