The mawk version available on: http://invisible-island.net/mawk/ solves this problem (and several other mawk 1.3.3 bugs too).
$ # mawk 1.3.3 of Ubuntu 10.10 $ echo x | mawk '/[[:lower:]]/'
$ # mawk 1.3.4 $ echo x | ../mawk-1.3.4-20100625/mawk '/[[:lower:]]/' x
$ echo x | gawk '/[[:lower:]]/' x
The mawk version available on: http:// invisible- island. net/mawk/
solves this problem (and several other mawk 1.3.3 bugs too).
$ # mawk 1.3.3 of Ubuntu 10.10
$ echo x | mawk '/[[:lower:]]/'
$ # mawk 1.3.4 1.3.4-20100625/ mawk '/[[:lower:]]/'
$ echo x | ../mawk-
x
$ echo x | gawk '/[[:lower:]]/'
x