4.1 The print Statement

The print statement is used to produce output with simple, standardized formatting. Specify only the strings or numbers to print, in a list separated by commas. They are output, separated by single spaces, followed by a newline. The statement looks like this:

     print item1, item2, ...

The entire list of items may be optionally enclosed in parentheses. The parentheses are necessary if any of the item expressions uses the `>' relational operator; otherwise it could be confused with a redirection (see Redirection).

The items to print can be constant strings or numbers, fields of the current record (such as $1), variables, or any awk expression. Numeric values are converted to strings and then printed.

The simple statement `print' with no items is equivalent to `print $0': it prints the entire current record. To print a blank line, use `print ""', where "" is the empty string. To print a fixed piece of text, use a string constant, such as "Don't Panic", as one item. If you forget to use the double-quote characters, your text is taken as an awk expression, and you will probably get an error. Keep in mind that a space is printed between any two items.