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Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2009 16:11:20 -0600 (MDT)
From: Warren Block <wblock@wonkity.com>
To: Len Conrad <lconrad@Go2France.com>
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	(wonkity.com [127.0.0.1]); Wed, 08 Apr 2009 16:11:21 -0600 (MDT)
Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject: awk field (was Re: (no subject))
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On Wed, 8 Apr 2009, Len Conrad wrote:

>
> We need to print a line when the 3rd field (with trailing ";" delimiter) is, eg, exactly 5 lower case characters
>
> awk ' $3 ~ /^[a-z]{5,5};$/ {print $0} ' file
>
> ... doesn't work.
>
> Suggestions?

Please give an example of the line this doesn't work on, and exactly 
what you want it to do.

"{5}" is probably acceptable instead of "{5,5}".  I don't do much awk, 
but here's a Perl example:

perl -e '$x = "abcde;"; print "Yes\n" if $x =~ /^[a-z]{5};$/'

-Warren Block * Rapid City, South Dakota USA