Linux in a Nutshell, 6th Edition

Name

match

Synopsis

match(str, regex)
match(str, regex [, array]) {G}

Function that matches the pattern, specified by the regular expression regex, in the string str and returns either the position in str where the match begins, or 0 if no occurrences are found. Sets the values of RSTART and RLENGTH to the start and length of the match, respectively.

If array is provided, gawk puts the text that matched the entire regular expression in array[0], the text that matched the first parenthesized subexpression in array[1], the second in array[2], and so on.