Re: [bug-gawk] mention how to specify file names containing = in the doc

[arnold]

Hi Ed,

I guess you have to down grade the trick from "well documented" to
merely "well known". :-)  It's part of the grand Oral Tradition of Unix,
along with the similar trick of  using ./-x to cause a file that
starts with a minus sign to not be treated as an option.

I will go ahead and add a sentence or two at an appropriate spot in
the manual.

Thanks for the suggestion,

Arnold

Ed Morton <address@hidden> wrote:

> Documentation enhancement request:
>
> Someone recently asked me how to pass a file name containing an `=` sign 
> (e.g. a file named `count=1`) as the input file name argument to awk. 
> They had tried this which of course fails:
>
>      awk 'script' count=1
>
> and I glibly told them it was well documented that you should do it as:
>
>      awk 'script' ./count=1
>
> Then I tried to find the documentation to provide a reference for that 
> and I couldn't.
>
> The gawk manual in 
> https://www.gnu.org/software/gawk/manual/gawk.html#Other-Arguments tells 
> us that `count=1` on it's own would be taken  as a variable assignment 
> and then 
> https://www.gnu.org/software/gawk/manual/gawk.html#Assignment-Options 
> confirms that fact but I couldn't find anywhere that tells us how to 
> solve the issue by just sticking `./` in front of the file name.
>
> Maybe we could get that stated somewhere in the manual?
>
>      Ed.