mjhjmtu

I have a working command

awk -F '[)#/(:]' 'BEGIN fw="";dev="" if ($0~/sh failover/) fw=$1 ; if (($0~/This host/)' OFS="|" test_data

I would like to turn it into a script. When doing so...

#!/bin/sh
awk '
BEGIN ";fw="";dev="" 
' test_data 

...the F='[)#/(:]' results in an error.

[...srv01]$ ./test
./test: line 3: syntax error near unexpected token `)'
./test: line 3: `BEGIN ";fw="";dev="" '
[...srv01]$ 

When changing to double quotes it takes everything between the twp double quotes as separator so will look for )#/(: instead of ) or # or / or ( or :

Here is the file content of test_data

[...srv01]$ cat test_data
JoeASA# sh failover | i ):|host
 This host: Primary - Active
 admin Interface management (313.13.0.13): Normal (Monitored)
 DMZ-FW Interface Inside (310.13.19.7): Normal (Not-Monitored)
 DMZ-FW Interface Outside-Zone2 (912.168.119.7): Normal (Not-Monitored)
 ENET Interface OUTSIDE(912.168.191.7): Normal (Not-Monitored)
 ENET Interface dmarc (912.168.192.7): Normal (Not-Monitored)
 GW Interface Extranet (912.168.23.27): Normal (Not-Monitored)
 GW Interface Outside-Zone (912.168.123.27): Normal (Not-Monitored)
 GW Interface management (331.1.1.47): Normal (Not-Monitored)
 Other host: Secondary - Standby Ready
 admin Interface management (313.13.0.12): Normal (Monitored)
 DMZ-FW Interface Inside (310.13.19.6): Normal (Not-Monitored)
 DMZ-FW Interface Outside-Zone2 (912.168.119.6): Normal (Not-Monitored)
 ENET Interface OUTSIDE(912.168.191.6): Normal (Not-Monitored)
 ENET Interface dmarc (912.168.192.6): Normal (Not-Monitored)
 GW Interface Extranet (912.168.23.26): Normal (Not-Monitored)
 GW Interface Outside-Zone (912.168.123.26): Normal (Not-Monitored)
 GW Interface management (331.1.1.46): Normal (Not-Monitored) 
SIMPLEASA1/sec/act# sh failover | i ):|host
 This host: Secondary - Active
 Interface Edge (912.168.22.17): Normal (Monitored)
 Interface Inside (310.13.19.17): Normal (Monitored)
 Interface EXT (912.168.50.17): Normal (Monitored)
 Interface WIFI (912.168.11.17): Normal (Monitored)
 Other host: Primary - Standby Ready
 Interface Edge (912.168.22.16): Normal (Monitored)
 Interface Inside (310.13.19.16): Normal (Monitored)
 Interface EXT (912.168.50.16): Normal (Monitored)
 Interface WIFI (912.168.11.16): Normal (Monitored) 
[..srv01]$ 

You're passing the script to awk as a single-quoted string from the shell, but you seem to have single quotes inside the script, too. They actually end the quoted string:

awk 'BEGIN ";fw="";dev="" 
 ^^^^^^^ not quoted

The shell sees an unquoted ), which causes a syntax error. Not that you'd want to use single quotes in the awk script anyway, they would be a syntax error in awk. So use double-quotes instead, as you did for the other assignments, they fit inside single-quotes in the shell nicely, and actually work in awk code:

awk 'BEGIN foo="bar"; ...'

Then, note that what the -F option to awk, does is to set the field separator, which is the variable FS, not F. So, you want to have BEGIN { FS="[)#/(:]"; ..., and you probably don't want to change the default record separator RS either — at least you didn't change it in your one-liner above.

Also, instead of putting an awk script inside a shell script, you could just skip the shell, and make awk the interpreter of that script directly (assuming your awk is at /usr/bin/awk):

#!/usr/bin/awk -f
BEGIN FS="[)#/(:]"; OFS=" 

If that's called ./script.awk and made executable, you can then run it as ./script.awk filename, i.e. with the file to process as argument to the script.