How to execute command for each loop in awk?

Question

I use awk to split the binary stream, and I can get every part in a for loop like this.

for(i=1;i<=NF;i++)

I do not want to convert each field to text or arguments, but just pass it directly to the command.

I'm trying to find something like this,

for(i=1;i<=NF;i++) system("decode")

but this obviously does not work. decoding does not accept input.

How to get decoding to get each field in a loop?

Answer 1

Doesn't this work for you?

 for(i=1;i<=NF;i++) print $i | "decode" close("decode") 

It sends each field (or byte in your case) to the channel connected to the "decoding" program.

After that, close the “decode” pipe to force reset all data on this channel.

You can learn more about redirecting gawk to https://www.gnu.org/software/gawk/manual/html_node/Redirection.html

If you want to perform "decoding" for each individual byte, just close the channel at each iteration:

 for(i=1;i<=NF;i++) { print $i | "decode" close("decode") } 

Answer 2

Is this what you are trying to do?

 awk '{for(i=1; i<=NF; i++) system("decode "$i)}' input_file.txt 

This should pass each field contained in the awk $i variable to an external decode program. Remember that the variable is outside the quotes for "decode " , or it will be interpreted by the shell instead of awk.