how to generate unique string

Question

I want to transform an XML document into HTML. Some XML elements have links to others documents like:

In the H

Answer 1

Use either of these depending how you want backslashes in the shell variables handled (avar is an awk variable, svar is a shell variable):

awk -v avar="$svar" '... avar ...' file
awk 'BEGIN{avar=ARGV[1];ARGV[1]=""}... avar ...' "$svar" file

See http://cfajohnson.com/shell/cus-faq-2.html#Q24 for details and other options. The first method above is almost always your best option and has the most obvious semantics.