Re: [9fans] is there any good reason why awk does this?

[Charles Forsyth <forsyth@caldo.demon.co.uk>]

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same reason as this, i suspect:

awk 'END {print 1 * "hello"}' /dev/null
0

the rules aren't really given in the manual page except perhaps
by implication in the BUGS, but in a context where a number is
expected (operand of arithmetic operator) the string is converted
to a number, and "hello" or "foo" are both zero, but "5hello" is 5.
exit takes an expression but doesn't say whether it's integer or
string (but it's integer, as usual on Unix).

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From: boyd@sdgm.net
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: [9fans] is there any good reason why awk does this?
Date: Sun, 31 Aug 2003 22:50:34 -0400
Message-ID: <1ef339d30bfee33810aa4e1d0c4488af@sdgm.net>

brahma% awk 'END {exit "foo"}' /dev/null ; echo $status

brahma% awk 'END {exit 1}' /dev/null ; echo $status
awk 8186: 1