Simplify awk command by reducing pipes
 

Hello guys, I came up with the following way of stringing up a bunch of awk commands to get what I needed which was a field of numbers but was wondering if there was a more efficient way some members could see accomplishing this.

awk '/hostcomment/,/}/' /var/nagios/status.dat | awk '/comment_id/' | awk -F= '{print $2}'


I get the task done but I always wonder if this is the best and most efficient.

Thanks

...

Hi Smartpatrol, here is the data:

hostcomment {

host_name=localhost

entry_type=1

comment_id=36

source=1

persistent=1

entry_time=1254238506

expires=0

expire_time=0

author=Nagios Admin

comment_data=blah blah blah

}

[root@nagios_lga admin.dk]# awk '/hostcomment/,/}/' /var/nagios/status.dat

hostcomment {

host_name=localhost

entry_type=1

comment_id=36

source=1

persistent=1

entry_time=1254238506

expires=0

expire_time=0

author=Nagios Admin

comment_data=blah blah blah

}

hostcomment {

host_name=localhost

entry_type=1

comment_id=37

source=1

persistent=1

entry_time=1254238516

expires=0

expire_time=0

author=Nagios Admin

comment_data=blah blah blah 2

}


My goal was to awk out the comment_id field. I understand I could have just did a grep for "comment_id" but there was mixed service and host comments in this file.

Using awk:
Using sed:

HTH

Forrest

...

Thank you Forrestt for your input. Will take some time to study both of your inputs and apply to my script.