[Solved] “regular expression compile failed (missing operand)” issue in AWK when checking for an asterisk [duplicate]

Question

First of all, * in regex is a quantifier that means “zero or more occurrences”. Since it is a regex metacharacter, it should be escaped, \*:

k config get-contexts | awk '/\*/{print $5}'

However, since you are looking for a fixed string rather than a pattern you can use index:

k config get-contexts | awk 'index($0, "*") {print $5}'

If * is found anywhere inside a “record” (the line) the fifth field will get printed.

Accepted Answer

First of all, * in regex is a quantifier that means “zero or more occurrences”. Since it is a regex metacharacter, it should be escaped, \*:

k config get-contexts | awk '/\*/{print $5}'

However, since you are looking for a fixed string rather than a pattern you can use index:

k config get-contexts | awk 'index($0, "*") {print $5}'

If * is found anywhere inside a “record” (the line) the fifth field will get printed.