Learning AWK Programming

The split (str, arr, regex) function

The split function splits the str string using a field separator specified using regex and stores it into the arr array. It returns the number of array elements created on splitting the string. If no separator is specified, then the string is split using the current field separator (FS) value. The following example illustrates the usage of the split function:

$ vi split1.awkBEGIN    {    string = "one-two-three-four"    regex = "-"    n = split ( string, arr, regex )        print "Array contains the following values: "    for ( i=1; i<=n; i++ )    {    printf("arr[%d] : %s\n", i, arr[i])    }}$ awk -f split1.awk

The output of the execution of the previous code is as follows:

Array contains the following values: arr[1] : onearr[2] : ...