[SOLVED] Gawk: is there grouping-only parentheses ? Seems it's confused with the capturing one

stillsmil · 01-20-2013, 12:04 PM

I scan an html file with this pattern

Code:

pattern="(exp)*(interesting)"

and wish to retrieve the "interesting" part with

Code:

gensub(pattern,"\\1",g)

until I realize that the first parentheses (which are intended to indicate priority) are used for back-reference.
In other regexp implementations there is something like

Code:

(?:exp)

for grouping-only purposes.
Is there anything for grouping-only parentheses in gawk/awk ?
Or any sugestions if I have to turn to different softwares ?

Thanks in advance!

pan64 · 01-20-2013, 01:00 PM

Yes, depending on the complexity of your script probably perl would be a better choice.
see here some discussion