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(gawk.info)Boolean Ops

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Boolean Expressions
===================

   A "Boolean expression" is a combination of comparison expressions or
matching expressions, using the Boolean operators "or" (`||'), "and"
(`&&'), and "not" (`!'), along with parentheses to control nesting.
The truth value of the Boolean expression is computed by combining the
truth values of the component expressions.  Boolean expressions are
also referred to as "logical expressions".  The terms are equivalent.

   Boolean expressions can be used wherever comparison and matching
expressions can be used.  They can be used in `if', `while', `do', and
`for' statements (Note: Control Statements in Actions.).
They have numeric values (one if true, zero if false), that come into
play if the result of the Boolean expression is stored in a variable or
used in arithmetic.

   In addition, every Boolean expression is also a valid pattern, so
you can use one as a pattern to control the execution of rules.  The
Boolean operators are:

`BOOLEAN1 && BOOLEAN2'
     True if both BOOLEAN1 and BOOLEAN2 are true.  For example, the
     following statement prints the current input record if it contains
     both `2400' and `foo':

          if ($0 ~ /2400/ && $0 ~ /foo/) print

     The subexpression BOOLEAN2 is evaluated only if BOOLEAN1 is true.
     This can make a difference when BOOLEAN2 contains expressions that
     have side effects. In the case of `$0 ~ /foo/ && ($2 == bar++)',
     the variable `bar' is not incremented if there is no substring
     `foo' in the record.

`BOOLEAN1 || BOOLEAN2'
     True if at least one of BOOLEAN1 or BOOLEAN2 is true.  For
     example, the following statement prints all records in the input
     that contain _either_ `2400' or `foo' or both:

          if ($0 ~ /2400/ || $0 ~ /foo/) print

     The subexpression BOOLEAN2 is evaluated only if BOOLEAN1 is false.
     This can make a difference when BOOLEAN2 contains expressions
     that have side effects.

`! BOOLEAN'
     True if BOOLEAN is false.  For example, the following program
     prints `no home!' in the unusual event that the `HOME' environment
     variable is not defined:

          BEGIN { if (! ("HOME" in ENVIRON))
                         print "no home!" }

     (The `in' operator is described in Note: Referring to an Array
     Element.)

   The `&&' and `||' operators are called "short-circuit" operators
because of the way they work.  Evaluation of the full expression is
"short-circuited" if the result can be determined part way through its
evaluation.

   Statements that use `&&' or `||' can be continued simply by putting
a newline after them.  But you cannot put a newline in front of either
of these operators without using backslash continuation (Note: `awk'
Statements Versus Lines.).

   The actual value of an expression using the `!' operator is either
one or zero, depending upon the truth value of the expression it is
applied to.  The `!' operator is often useful for changing the sense of
a flag variable from false to true and back again. For example, the
following program is one way to print lines in between special
bracketing lines:

     $1 == "START"   { interested = ! interested; next }
     interested == 1 { print }
     $1 == "END"     { interested = ! interested; next }

The variable `interested', as with all `awk' variables, starts out
initialized to zero, which is also false.  When a line is seen whose
first field is `START', the value of `interested' is toggled to true,
using `!'. The next rule prints lines as long as `interested' is true.
When a line is seen whose first field is `END', `interested' is toggled
back to false.

   *Note:* The `next' statement is discussed in Note: The `next'
Statement.  `next' tells `awk' to skip the rest of the
rules, get the next record, and start processing the rules over again
at the top.  The reason it's there is to avoid printing the bracketing
`START' and `END' lines.