Re: [gawk] Test return value of awk statement

[Chris Jones]

On Sat, Jan 24, 2009 at 08:02:57PM EST, Dan Henry wrote:
> On Sat, 24 Jan 2009 19:48:06 -0500, Chris Jones <cjns1989@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
> >I'm trying to figure out how I can test the return value of a printf
> >statement in an awk script.
> >
> >printf "format", variable
> >if (condition==bad) {exit 1}               # if printf failed, exit
> >
> >I have been unable to find what the "condition" in the pseudo-awk above
> >might be.
> 
> Why would it fail?  stdout closed?  

Nice catch. I use this in bash scripts to determine that the parent shell
instance no longer exists:

printf ... || exit 1

This ensures instances of the script terminate instead of crowding my
ssystem with gangs of orphans when I bounce my gnu/screen sessions.

> Anyway, I can't answer definitively, but am interested and thus I
> suggest you ask on comp.lang.awk also.

Done.