Re: traditional awk: lazy splitting of $0?

[Ralf Wildenhues]

Hi Eric,

* Eric Blake wrote on Sat, Nov 17, 2007 at 01:38:55PM CET:
> According to Ralf Wildenhues on 11/17/2007 1:38 AM:
> >  Tru64 4.0D awk
> >     even splits the input if $i, i>0, was never accessed in the script.
> 
> Let's document that in autoconf.texi, then.

Sure.  Proposed patch below.  Will apply in a couple of days.

Cheers, and sorry for the delay,
Ralf

        * doc/autoconf.texi (Limitations of Usual Tools) <awk>:
        Document that Tru64 awk always splits $0.

diff --git a/doc/autoconf.texi b/doc/autoconf.texi
index 76d4b77..d6bd786 100644
--- a/doc/autoconf.texi
+++ b/doc/autoconf.texi
@@ -14487,9 +14487,10 @@ In code portable to both traditional and modern Awk, 
@code{FS} must be a
 string containing just one ordinary character, and similarly for the
 field-separator argument to @code{split}.
 
-Traditional Awk has a limit of 99
-fields in a record.  You may be able to circumvent this problem by using
address@hidden
+Traditional Awk has a limit of 99 fields in a record.  Since some Awk
+implementations, like Tru64's, split the input even if you don't refer
+to any field in the script, to circumvent this problem, set @samp{FS}
+to an unusual character and use @code{split}.
 
 Traditional Awk has a limit of at most 99 bytes in a number formatted by
 @code{OFMT}; for example, @code{OFMT="%.300e"; print 0.1;} typically