Why awk print is strange when I set FS = " " instead of FS = "\t"?

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Why awk print is strange when I set FS = " " instead of FS = "\t"?

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07-23-2018

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Why awk print is strange when I set FS = " " instead of FS = "\t"?

Look at the following data file（cou.data） which has four fields separated by tab.

Four fields are country name, land area, population, continent where it belongs.

As for country name or continent name which has two words, two words are separated by space.

(Data are not accurately confirmed, just for test purpose)

Code:

USSR    8649    275    Asia
    Cananda    3852    25    North America
    China    3705    1032    Asia
    USA    3615    237    North America
    Brazil    3286    134    South America
    India    1267    746    Asia
    Mexico    762    78    North America
    France    211    55    Europe
    Japan    144    120    Asia
    Germany    96    61    Europe
    England    94    56    Europe
    Taiwan    55    144    Asia
    North Korea    44    2134    Asia

-------------------------

Code:

awk 'BEGIN { FS = "\t" } { print $1, "---", $4 }' cou.data

I got the output which exactly meets my anticipation:

Code:

USSR --- Asia
    Cananda --- North America
    China --- Asia
    USA --- North America
    Brazil --- South America
    India --- Asia
    Mexico --- North America
    France --- Europe
    Japan --- Asia
    Germany --- Europe
    England --- Europe
    Taiwan --- Asia
    North Korea --- Asia

Then I replace \t by one space (" ")
That is :

Code:

awk 'BEGIN { FS = " " } { print $1, "---", $4 }' cou.data

The output I got is not understandable to me

Code:

USSR --- Asia
    Cananda --- North
    China --- Asia
    USA --- North
    Brazil --- South
    India --- Asia
    Mexico --- North
    France --- Europe
    Japan --- Asia
    Germany --- Europe
    England --- Europe
    Taiwan --- Asia
    North --- 2134

Line 2,4,5,7,13 each have one space and the other lines have no space(s) at all.
As for lines that have no space, why $1, $4 still can be printed ?

As for line 2,4,5,7,13, I thought $1 should be printed like this:

Code:

 Cananda    3852    25    North 
   
        USA    3615    237    North 
        Brazil    3286    134    South 

        Mexico    762    78    North 
      
        North

And $4 does not exist.

Where did I get wrong ?

Last edited by RudiC; 07-24-2018 at 03:15 AM.. Reason: Changed QUOTE tags to CODE.

chihuyu

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07-23-2018

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Hello chihuyu,

Welcome to forums. So problem here is string/country names on 1st field which are having spaces in their names for example North Korea. So when you are setting FS as \t this string will be considered as a single field on the other hand when you will set FS as space this will be considered as 2 different fields. That is why you are seeing difference between field numbers after changing the FS values in your codes.

I would suggest your first attempt is good enough to get your expected values.
Kindly do let me know in case of any queries on same.

Thanks,
R. Singh

RavinderSingh13

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