Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!dptg!ulysses!andante!alice!paul
From: paul@alice.UUCP (Paul Krzyzanowski)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: AWK field seperator question
Summary: resetting field separator in awk
Message-ID: <10489@alice.UUCP>
Date: 16 Feb 90 02:45:17 GMT
References: <"900215154914.75046.606.CHD39-1"@CompuServe.COM>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill NJ
Lines: 30

In article <"900215154914.75046.606.CHD39-1"@CompuServe.COM>, 75046.606@CompuServe.COM (Larry W. Virden) writes:
> I want to , within a particular pattern { action }, reset the
> Field Seperator, process the current record, then set the FS back
> to the default action.
> 
> To do this, I tried:
> /config/ {
>         FS = "\""; print $2 ;
>         FS = ""
>         next
> }
> 
> {
>         print $1, $2
> }

The program isn't doing what you want because you aren't "resetting"
the field separator.  Setting FS to an empty string doesn't reset
FS to its previous value;  you have to explicitely set it to use
white space as a separator.

Try           FS = " "
instead of    FS = ""


	-Paul Krzyzanowski
	 paul@allegra.att.com