How do I put the contents of a file into a variable. A file called 655.grp contains " /Brightwood/ {cat="Brightwood"} ; /East Longmeadow/ {cat="East Longmeadow"} ; /Forest Park/ {cat="Forest Park"} ; " that will be inserted into the middle of an awk statement the result being awk '/Brightwood/ {cat="Brightwood"} ; /East Longmeadow/ {cat="East Longmeadow"} ; /Forest Park/ {cat="Forest Park"} {print $0 ",",cat,",TX," }' data.4 > data.all I want to just enter awk ' $variable {print $0 ",",cat,",TX," }' data.4 > data.all and have it automatically pull up the contents of the file as a part of the awk statement. Anyone have a clue how to do this? Many thanks

The common method for setting the contents of a file to a variable is this way: var=`cat 655.grp` I don't know what you are really doing. I think you will have some syntax problems based on the structure of your file 655.grp. That said, when you have variable data in an awk structure, a method is to use a here document, send the output to a file, and then execute the awk script. Consider this example: awk ' /Brightword/ { cat="Brightwood" print $0","cat",TX" } ' data.4 Now, I'll show you how to perform the same test awk program by variablizing Brightwood in a HERE document: myvar="Brightword" cat<<HERE >awkfile /${myvar}/ { cat="${myvar}" print \$0","cat",TX" } HERE # end HERE document The above document creates awkfile. Note the absense of single quotes. Also, note escaping $0 so the shell doesn't expand it. # create the awk input file infile="data.4" # execute the awkfile created above awk -f awkfile $infile # end example The second example should show the same output as the first. Let me know if you have any questions.

I tried a hundred things, finally found something that works (on linux). This is as close as I can get. x=`cat 655.grp` y='{print $0 ",",cat,",TX,"}' eval awk \'$x$y\' data.4 > data.all