Previously conversions could be triggered by either adding zero (+0), unary plus (+) or unary minus (-) [1]:
$ gawk --version GNU Awk 4.1.4, API: 1.1 (GNU MPFR 3.1.6-p1, GNU MP 6.1.2) $ ./gawk 'BEGIN {print "01" + 0}' 1 $ ./gawk 'BEGIN {print +"01"}' 1 $ ./gawk 'BEGIN {print -"01"}' -1 However now conversion only happens with adding zero and unary minus: $ gawk --version GNU Awk 4.2.0, API: 2.0 (GNU MPFR 3.1.6-p1, GNU MP 6.1.2) $ gawk 'BEGIN {print "01" + 0}' 1 $ gawk 'BEGIN {print +"01"}' 01 $ gawk 'BEGIN {print -"01"}' -1 Does anyone know where this change was mentioned or why it was done? [1] http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/awk.html -- Problem reports: http://cygwin.com/problems.html FAQ: http://cygwin.com/faq/ Documentation: http://cygwin.com/docs.html Unsubscribe info: http://cygwin.com/ml/#unsubscribe-simple