gawk: Single Character Fields
1
1 4.5.3 Making Each Character a Separate Field
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1
1 There are times when you may want to examine each character of a record
1 separately. This can be done in 'gawk' by simply assigning the null
1 string ('""') to 'FS'. (c.e.) In this case, each individual character
1 in the record becomes a separate field. For example:
1
1 $ echo a b | gawk 'BEGIN { FS = "" }
1 > {
1 > for (i = 1; i <= NF; i = i + 1)
1 > print "Field", i, "is", $i
1 > }'
1 -| Field 1 is a
1 -| Field 2 is
1 -| Field 3 is b
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1 Traditionally, the behavior of 'FS' equal to '""' was not defined.
1 In this case, most versions of Unix 'awk' simply treat the entire record
11 as only having one field. (d.c.) In compatibility mode (⇒
Options), if 'FS' is the null string, then 'gawk' also behaves this
1 way.
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