Splitting the data and storing it into 2 variables

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

Hi,

I have a file in the given format:

|aaa |hhh |fat hat chat |make sure

I need to get store in a variable,say 'error' the value of the string 'fat hat chat'

In short,
echo $error should give the result
fat hat chat

Is this possible using awk?

Also, can this be split.For example, I have to store the value of the string (fat hat chat) in to two variables.Say, error1 and error2 (Given field width is predefined)
i.e
error1=fat ha
error2=h chat

Thanks in advance
Js

2

I have got the answer for my first question:

sed '1q' 1psql.out | awk -F"|" '{print $3}' ( I found this from the forum it self)

But can some one help me with teh second part???

Thanks in advance
Js

3

Dear jisha,

try this

to get the value of "error=hat fat chat", use this

awk -F'|' '{print $3}' filename

to split a value,
try this

split($3,a,<seperator of the value>)

gud luk

Regards,
Pankaj

4

Thanks for ur time Pankaj.
Can u please explain me what the 'a' and separator of the value stands for?
I searched in the man page .. But didnt understand any thing ..

Regards,
Js

5

Can any one tell me the solution for the same question when the given file has fields not separated by the | ???

Thanks in advance
Js

6

Dear Jisha,

split($3,a,<seperator of the value>)

here a is the array variable. u can use error instead of a
then print like this

print a[1]
print a[2]

u'll cum to know the thing

Regards,
Pankaj

7

hi there! (i'm at SunOS 5.9)

i'm trying to split a string with *split*, but i can't.

for example:

in shell i do:

$ string='hi go bye'
$ then i try: awk 'split($string, strings, " ")'
(and a get the following)
$ awk: syntax error near line 1
$ awk: illegal statement near line 1

i've tried a lot of choices, with files and more, and i can't get what's going on.

how can i make it work?

8

try using nawk

9

Hi,

I have this,

awk '{for(x=1;x<=NF;x++) {array[x] = $x}}' input.txt

where input.txt has only one line (comma deliminated) and I am trying to get the data into an array. For some reason, the array is empty. Can someone please tell me what is wrong with this statement?

Thanks.

10

@viko: You need to pass the shell variable to awk

$ str="a b c"
$ echo $str
a b c
$ awk -v string="$str" 'BEGIN { split(string,a); for(i in a) print "=> " a; }'
=> b
=> c
=> a

@ycshen: You need to pass comma as the field separator.

awk -F, {...}
11

thanks agn, that was helpful for me, but i don't know how to use the array back in shell

i know
a=`awk -v string="$str" 'BEGIN { split(string,a); for(i in a) print "=> " a[i]; }'`

but obviously that doesn't bring me the entire array

can someone help me a little more?