Shell Programming and Scripting

Dear Experts,

How to use field separator in awk , when the field separation is needed as "||"



Example: (file1 )

Code:

aa || bb  ||  cc || 1234
xx || yy  ||  zz  || 1123

Q:

If I want to print $3 and $4 only , with using the field separator "||"
How to write awk code:

I am trying :

Code:

#  awk -F "||" '{print $3 , $4 }  file1

But not working,

Thanks in advance,
Rveri.

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Does your input file really look like that, or did you fill it with spaces to try and make it align?

What's your system? Many versions of awk will only accept a single character as the input separator.

In what way is it "not working"?

Hi Corona688,

Thank you for quick reply,
The OS is: hp-ux 11.23 , IA64, I have given the information precisely again:


The data file:

Code:

# cat file1
aa || bb || cc || dd  || 1234
xx || yy || zz || ww  || 0911
bb || xx || bb || tt  || 2322

I am trying here to get two filed, say $3 & $4 . But it is not giving the desired output: for $3 & $4 values.

Code:

# cat file1 | awk -F "||" '{print $3,$4}'
awk: There is a regular expression error.
        Unknown error
 The input line number is 1.
 The source line number is 1.

Code:

# what /usr/bin/awk
/usr/bin/awk:
         lib.c $Date: 2005/10/05 03:13:21 $Revision: r11.23/1 PATCH_11.23 (PHCO_33931)
         $Revision: @(#) awk R11.23_BL2005_1214_2 PATCH_11.23 PHCO_33931 
#

Thank you,

Regular expression error? Perhaps your awk can take multiple characters after all, if it's considering it as a regular expression.

It may be taking the | to mean 'or' instead of a literal |.

Code:

awk -F '[|][|]' '{ print $3,$4 }' filename

Right the awk was assuming it was an or operator like "||" OR operator,
Thanks for showing the correct usage , it worked like a charm . SOLVED!.

| has a slightly different meaning in a regex, used like abc|def|ghi to match multiple different strings

But same problem either way, have to tell it to take it literally.