Re: GNU Awk - inplace editing

On 2025-05-23, Kenny McCormack <gazelle@shell.xmission.com> wrote:

In article <100p11m$3uh3m$1@dont-email.me>,
Janis Papanagnou  <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com> wrote:

In GNU Awk I was looking for the in-place option (similar to sed -i).
I thought there once was some _simple_ option usable from the command
line. (Or am I misremembering?)
>
The manual now suggests to use a GNU Awk "inplace" _Extension_ for that
 gawk -i inplace ...
and
 gawk -i inplace -v inplace::suffix=.bak ...
respectively.
>
That's not exactly as simple to use as, say,
 gawk -i ...
and
 gawk -i.bak
so I suppose there's a reason for the added complexity in the handling.
>
Does anyone know that reason or remember a rationale? - I don't recall
any discussions about that...

>
I've explained this a few times over the years (in this newsgroup).
>
There was never a "-i" option in Gawk that meant "inplace" (and there never
will be).
>
The key to understanding this is to understand that (in Gawk), the "i" in
"-i" does not stand for "inplace".  It stands for "include".
>
Once you understand that, all becomes clear.

Sure, but, interestingly, just like Janis, I also seem to have a false,
memory of there having been some other inplace mechanism that was
replaced by the -i inplace include (not necessarily a -i option). There
is no evidence of any such in the available materials, though.

We might have both been duped by something unclear someone said once,
(perhaps here)?

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