The nextfile Statement

gawk provides the nextfile statement, which is similar to the next statement. However, instead of abandoning processing of the current record, the nextfile statement instructs gawk to stop processing the current data file.

Upon execution of the nextfile statement, FILENAME is updated to the name of the next data file listed on the command line, FNR is reset to one, ARGIND is incremented, and processing starts over with the first rule in the progam. See section Built-in Variables.

If the nextfile statement causes the end of the input to be reached, then the code in any END rules will be executed. See section The BEGIN and END Special Patterns.

The nextfile statement is a gawk extension; it is not (currently) available in any other awk implementation. See section Implementing nextfile as a Function, for a user-defined function you can use to simulate the nextfile statement.

The nextfile statement would be useful if you have many data files to process, and you expect that you would not want to process every record in every file. Normally, in order to move on to the next data file, you would have to continue scanning the unwanted records. The nextfile statement accomplishes this much more efficiently.

Caution: Versions of gawk prior to 3.0 used two words (`next file') for the nextfile statement. This was changed in 3.0 to one word, since the treatment of `file' was inconsistent. When it appeared after next, it was a keyword. Otherwise, it was a regular identifier. The old usage is still accepted. However, gawk will generate a warning message, and support for next file will eventually be discontinued in a future version of gawk.

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