'awk' is not recognized

[span]

I saw this issue #23 which mentions that awk is not running. The issue is closed but since awk was not the main concern in the issue it was never treated.

I'm running Windows 7 64-bit and I have the awk binary in vendor\msysgit\bin\ but when I try to run it in Cmder it is not recognized

λ awk
'awk' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

I changed the filename to awk.exe and got this instead:

λ awk
This version of [my path]\vendor\msysgit\bin\awk.exe is not compatible 
with the version of Windows you're running. Check your computer's system 
information to see whether you need a x86 (32-bit) or x64 (64-bit) version of 
the program, and then contact the software publisher.

I'm not sure if this is supposed to work or not but I figured I'd post it here if you have any input or for anyone else looking for this.

[rmorrin]

Interestingly, if we look at the contents of awk, it looks to be just a shell script that calls gawk.exe which (at least for me) works fine:

λ cat "C:\Program Files (x86)\Git\bin\awk"

#!/bin/sh
# Copyright (C) 2002, Earnie Boyd
#   mailto:earnie@users.sf.net
# This file is part of MSYS
#   http://www.mingw.org/msys.shtml
# File: awk

gawk "$@"

Using sh awk does work on my end.

[span]

Nice, I didn't take the time to investigate further and simply assumed awk was a binary. Running it as you say with sh awk seems to work fine.

λ sh awk
Usage: gawk [POSIX or GNU style options] -f progfile [--] file ...
        gawk [POSIX or GNU style options] [--] 'program' file ...
POSIX options:          GNU long options:
        -f progfile             --file=progfile
        -F fs                   --field-separator=fs
        -v var=val              --assign=var=val
        -m[fr] val
        -W compat               --compat
        -W copyleft             --copyleft
        -W copyright            --copyright
        -W help                 --help
        -W lint                 --lint
        -W lint-old             --lint-old
        -W posix                --posix
        -W re-interval          --re-interval
        -W source=program-text  --source=program-text
        -W traditional          --traditional
        -W usage                --usage
        -W version              --version

Report bugs to bug-gnu-utils@gnu.org,
with a Cc: to arnold@gnu.org

[rmorrin]

@span It's a strange one. Seems cmd.exe can't interpret how to run those files. Running awk from Git's included bash prompt works fine. The same is true with egrep which is just a wrapper for grep -E

For the time being, you can get around the issue by adding the following to cmder's aliases file

awk=sh awk $*

Admittedly not the most elegant solution, but easier than retraining your brain your brain to type sh awk every time :-)

[span]

Nice, I find working workarounds the most beautiful so I have no second thoughts about this ;)

[cyrusdavid]

I just added a new startup task with this command instead of an alias:

F:\ProgramFiles\CMDer\vendor\msysgit\bin\sh.exe --login -i -new_console:d:%USERPROFILE%

But I don't know how to get that cute lambda prompt.

[rmorrin]

@vohof Interesting, what are the benefits of using a startup task over an alias?

[cyrusdavid]

@rmorrin I could use all the other msysgit binaries

[valueforvalue]

A simple solution to this issue that works for Vista on up is just to use a symlink.

mklink awk.exe gawk.exe

Or you could create a batch file named awk.bat with the command:

@echo off
gawk %*

Do note that I'm not sure how the arguments are passed as far as spaces go. Wrapping the "%*" in quotes doesn't work. So I think the cleanest solution is just to use a symlink.

[jasperandrew]

I just renamed gawk.exe to awk.exe, and then the awk command worked fine. I don't know whether or not that's stable or normal, though...