Shell Programming and Scripting

Months=jan feb mar april x y ..

echo $Months >> months ##taking all fields into a file

cat months |awk '{ for (i = 1; i <= NF; i = i + 1)    ##awk loop to print each field
                         print "Field", i, "is", $i
                 }'

$ Months="jan feb mar april x y"
$ awk -v M="$Months" 'BEGIN{n=split(M,a);print a[1]}'
jan
$ awk -v M="$Months" 'BEGIN{n=split(M,a);print a[2]}'
feb
$ awk -v M="$Months" 'BEGIN{n=split(M,a);print a[3]}'
mar

$ set -- jan feb mar april x y
$ echo $1
jan
$ echo $2
feb
$ echo $3
mar