How can I get the length of an array in awk?

Question

This command

echo \"hello world\" | awk \'{split($0, array, \" \")} END{print length(array) }\'

does not work for me and gives this error m

Answer 1

Try this if you are not using gawk.

awk 'BEGIN{test="aaa bbb ccc";a=split(test, ff, " "); print ff[1]; print a; print ff[a]}'

Output:

aaa
3
ccc

8.4.4 Using split() to Create Arrays http://docstore.mik.ua/orelly/unix/sedawk/ch08_04.htm

Answer 2

echo "hello world" | awk '{lng=split($0, array, " ")} END{print lng) }'