CODEWITHSUNDEEP
macosawk
Wajih
Wajih

Reputation: 925

Multiple dots (points) separator

Any equivalent to echo "(one) ... (two)" |awk -F "\.\.\." '{print $2}' # works in linux which works on mac os

echo "(one) ... (two)" |awk -F " ... " '{print $2}' # 'works' when we add spaces or use single dot separator echo "(one) ... (two)" |awk -F "\." '{print $4}' but with more than one dot (or dot with single space) fails (gives different interpretations)?

try echo "(one) ... (two)" |awk -F " \." '{print $2}' or echo "(one) ... (two)" |awk -F "\. " '{print $2}'

Upvotes: 0

Views: 362

Answers (1)

jaypal singh
jaypal singh

Reputation: 77155

When you use a regex in field separator, escaping the special character with one back slash doesn't really mean anything special. You'll have to do: 

$ echo "(one)  ...  (two)" | awk -F  "\\\.\\\.\\\." '{for(i=1;i<=NF;i++) print "$"i " is "$i}' | cat -ve
$1 is (one)  $
$2 is   (two)$

The better way to do is put the special character in a character class to consider it literal. 

$ echo "(one)  ...  (two)" | awk -F  "[.]{3}" '{for(i=1;i<=NF;i++) print "$"i " is "$i}' | cat -ve
$1 is (one)  $
$2 is   (two)$

Upvotes: 3

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