Split string on a backslash (“\”) delimiter in awk?

Question

I am trying to split the string in a file based on some delimiter.But I am not able to achieve it correctly... Here is my code below.

awk \'var=split($2,arr,         


        

Answer 1

Sample data and output is my best guess at your requirement

 echo '1:2\\a\\b:3' | awk -F: '{ 
     n=split($2,arr,"\\")
     # print "#dbg:n=" n
     var=arr[3]
     print var
     }'

output

b

Recall that split returns the number of fields that it found to split. You can uncomment the debug line and you'll see the value 3 returned.

Note also that for my test, I had to use 2 '\' chars for 1 to be processed. I don't think you'll need that in a file, but if this doesn't work with a file, then try adding extra '\' as needed to your data. I tried several variations on how to use '\', and this seems the most straightforward. Others are welcome to comment!

I hope this helps.