Q: I can't get the following shell script to work:

Q:

case $col2 in "income") awk '{if($2=='$col2') {   /* THIS LINE IS THE PROBLEM */           /* I CAN'T GET AWK TO RECOGNIZE EITHER '$col2' or '$2' */                 .                 .            } ' $file1 ;;

A: It is clear from this code fragment that awk is supposed to compare $2 with "income" . If you think about it (or change awk to echo above), you will see that you have given the following to awk :

A:

{if($2==income) { /* THIS LINE IS THE PROBLEM */

A: What does awk do with this? It compares $2 with the contents of the variable income . If income has not been set, it compares it with zero or with the null string. Instead, you want:

A:

{ if ($2 == "income") {

A: which you can say with:

A:

case $col2 in income)         awk '         {                 if ($2 == "'$col2'") {                         ... awk code ...                 }         }' $file1;;