Path: news.eternal-september.org!eternal-september.org!feeder3.eternal-september.org!xmission!nnrp.xmission!.POSTED.shell.xmission.com!not-for-mail
From: gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.awk
Subject: Re: GNU Awk - inplace editing
Date: Fri, 23 May 2025 08:22:05 -0000 (UTC)
Organization: The official candy of the new Millennium
Message-ID: <100pb7d$3kkjb$1@news.xmission.com>
References: <100p11m$3uh3m$1@dont-email.me>
Injection-Date: Fri, 23 May 2025 08:22:05 -0000 (UTC)
Injection-Info: news.xmission.com; posting-host="shell.xmission.com:166.70.8.4";
	logging-data="3822187"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@xmission.com"
X-Newsreader: trn 4.0-test77 (Sep 1, 2010)
Originator: gazelle@shell.xmission.com (Kenny McCormack)

In article <100p11m$3uh3m$1@dont-email.me>,
Janis Papanagnou  <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> wrote:
>In GNU Awk I was looking for the in-place option (similar to sed -i).
>I thought there once was some _simple_ option usable from the command
>line. (Or am I misremembering?)
>
>The manual now suggests to use a GNU Awk "inplace" _Extension_ for that
>  gawk -i inplace ...
>and
>  gawk -i inplace -v inplace::suffix=.bak ...
>respectively.
>
>That's not exactly as simple to use as, say,
>  gawk -i ...
>and
>  gawk -i.bak
>so I suppose there's a reason for the added complexity in the handling.
>
>Does anyone know that reason or remember a rationale? - I don't recall
>any discussions about that...

I've explained this a few times over the years (in this newsgroup).

There was never a "-i" option in Gawk that meant "inplace" (and there never
will be).

The key to understanding this is to understand that (in Gawk), the "i" in
"-i" does not stand for "inplace".  It stands for "include".

Once you understand that, all becomes clear.

-- 
Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), who sits on the Judiciary Committee, said it was
"extremely inappropriate" for the president to nominate a Supreme Court justice on a
day ending with the letter "Y", and she said that "Biden is putting the demands of the
radical progressive left ahead of what is best for our nation."