[TUHS] non-Posix input files

[arnold at skeeve.com]

Chet Ramey via TUHS <tuhs at tuhs.org> wrote:

> It also says "The standard utilities that have such restrictions always
> specify "text files" in their STDIN or INPUT FILES sections," so you can't
> avoid it.
>
> awk is one such utility (sh is not). This is an application requirement, so
> awk is required to add a newline at the end of a file that does not have
> one.

No awk I know of actually does that. Instead, they all treat end of file
as terminating the current input record:

	$ for awk in gawk nawk mawk mksawk "busybox awk" goawk
	> do echo == $awk
	> echo -n ab:cd | $awk -v RS=: '{ print ">" $0 "<" }'
	> done
	== gawk
	>ab<
	>cd<
	== nawk
	>ab<
	>cd<
	== mawk
	>ab<
	>cd<
	== mksawk
	>ab<
	>cd<
	== busybox awk
	>ab<
	>cd<
	== goawk
	>ab<
	>cd<

If a newline were being added, the output would have been:

	>ab<
	>cd
	<

Nor is this something that I'm about to change, or suggest to any other
awk author to change.

My two cents,

Arnold