Re: [bug-gawk] 0 is invalid as number of arguments for tolower

[Stephane Chazelas]

2015-10-11 20:16:04 +0200, Hermann Peifer:
> 
> Hi again,
> 
> I assume I am simply to naïve in assuming that the below would ever
> work. gsub() knows what `&' is about, but tolower() doesn't and will
> never learn, so this is a feature (and shouldn't be sent to bug-gawk
> in the first place ;-), correct?
> 
> Hermann
> 
> $ echo "LA SOMME, LA MANCHE, LE RHIN ET LA MER DU NORD" |
> awk 'gsub(/ (LE|LA|LES|ET|DU) /, tolower(&))'
> awk: cmd. line:1: gsub(/ (LE|LA|LES|ET|DU) /, tolower(&))
> awk: cmd. line:1:                                     ^ syntax error
> awk: cmd. line:1: gsub(/ (LE|LA|LES|ET|DU) /, tolower(&))
> awk: cmd. line:1:                                      ^ 0 is
> invalid as number of arguments for tolower
[...]

Yes.

Even if you did

awk 'gsub(/ (LE|LA|LES|ET|DU) /, tolower("&"))'

That would still be the same as:

awk 'gsub(/ (LE|LA|LES|ET|DU) /, "&")'

tolower("&") being "&".

Instead, you could do:

awk -v RS='LE|LA|LES|ET|DU' '{printf "%s", $0 tolower(RT)}'

With GNU sed:

sed -E 's/LE|LA|LES|ET|DU/\L&/g'

(a la vi). I suppose if gawk was to implement a similar feature,
it would do something similar.

-- 
Stephane