User error or awk bug?

[Garrett Cooper]

On Jan 15, 2010, at 1:35 PM, Michel Talon wrote:

> awk doesn't use perl or python type regular expressions but much
> simpler ones, called "extended". Your constructs are managed by Gnu awk
> with the --posix option only. The following achieves what you want in 
> a simpler way
> 
> 
> niobe% echo "/"|awk 'gsub(/\/+/,"/")'
> /
> niobe% echo "//"|awk 'gsub(/\/+/,"/")'
> /

Someone else on the gawk list provided me with the answer: awk doesn't support POSIX regexp intervals, even though the spec says awk should. His assumption was the fact that awk uses {} for separating control statements, but I'm not sure if that's true or not.

Thanks!
-Garrett