Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!lavaca.uh.edu!uhnix1!lobster!mwk!wrightgr
From: wrightgr@mwk.uucp (Greg, Ext. 3414)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Awk Field Separators
Message-ID: <3353@mwk.uucp>
Date: 24 Aug 90 08:25:53 GMT
References: <3729@se-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM>
Distribution: comp.unix.questions
Organization: M. W. Kellogg, Houston TX
Lines: 23

In article <3729@se-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM>, cubbage@se-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM (Sharon Cubbage) writes:
> Does anybody know how to specify more than one field separator in Awk?
> I would like to specify to an Awk program to treat single spaces as well
> as bars as field separators so that a string such as :
> 
> 12 12 12 34|34|34
> 
> will be said to have 6 fields.  I've tried to create a regular expression
> to handle both cases but it hasn't been working.
> 
> Any hints?

I haven't found any way to do it either.  The manual says it only accepts a
single character.  You might try getting a copy of GAWK (Gnu Awk).  GAWK allows
regular expressions for the FS variable. For example:
   awk 'BEGIN {FS="[ |]"} {print NF}' input.dat
gives a result of 6 for the data above.  Awk, however, gives 1 as a result.

It's worth checking out.

Greg Wright <wrightgr@mwk>
            uucp: uhnix1!mwk!wrightgr  So they tell me.  We just got a new feed
                                       so I don't know for sure.