in reply to Re^2: Simple awk question
in thread Simple awk question

On second thought. Almost! I need $fields to now be just that first field. Not just print the first field, it now needs to be a new variable.

I tried 
$fields = print $fields[0], "\n";

[download]
close but no cigar, yet.

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Re^4: Simple awk question
by jeffa (Bishop) on Jun 05, 2014 at 19:16 UTC

    Don't assign the return of print, just assign the value of the index array element: 

    my $field = $fields[0];
print "$field\n";

    [download]

    But why not just use Perl's awk mode instead? 

    echo '2014-06-04T15:24:21-05:00 syslog_dp [0x80e00099][ftp][error] sec
+ure-backup(FBB): trans(5487)' | perl -lape '$_=$F[0]'

    [download]

    jeffa

    L-LL-L--L-LL-L--L-LL-L--
-R--R-RR-R--R-RR-R--R-RR
B--B--B--B--B--B--B--B--
H---H---H---H---H---H---
(the triplet paradiddle with high-hat)
[reply]
[d/l]
[select]

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