Cfrtjryk

In my understanding, awk array is something like python dict.

So I write down the code bellow to explore it:

awk '{my_dict[$1] = $2} END { print my_dict}' zen

And I got: awk: can't read value of my_dict; it's an array name.

As the first column isn`t a number, how could I read the total content of the array or traverse it?

You can loop over the array's keys and extract the corresponding values:

awk '{my_dict[$1] = $2} END { for (key in my_dict) { print my_dict[key] } }' zen

To get output similar to that you'd get with a Python dictionary, you can print the key as well:

awk '{my_dict[$1] = $2} END { for (key in my_dict) { print key ": " my_dict[key] } }' zen

This works regardless of the key type.

That would loop through the array:

END { for (i in my_dict) print my_dict[i] }

i is the index.

Array in awk is not first class object like dictionary in Python. In awk, array name without subscript can only use in two context:

• A parameter in a function definition or function call.


• Name token after keyword in.

In other context, awk will raise an error.

You need a for loop to iterate and print content of an array:

$ echo 1 2 | awk '{my_dict[$1] = $2};END {for(i in my_dict) print my_dict[i]}'

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