awk is limited to only one line operations?

Question

Like in the subject. Let say I have a file which contains:

*aaa A B C

D E F 55

*ccc A B C

R E T 33

and I would know if it's possibe to make a statement if $1=="*aaa" then print $4 from next line. I know that one of the solutions could be to convent file to this output:

*aaa A B C D E F 55

*ccc A B C R E T 33

using "*" as line separator, but I would like to avoid this.

Regards, lucas

Answer 1

Use a variable (called primed in the example) which is set if the match is found. the next statement reads the next line which is then printed if primed is set.

awk '{
if (primed) print $4; 
if ($1 == "*aaa") { primed=1; next } primed=0; }' file