How to split the string 201702221015 in the CCYY|MM|DD|HH|MN format using AWK

Question

How to split the string 201702221015 in the CCYY|MM|DD|HH|MN format using awk, i.e. split the string 201702221015 in to 2017|02|22|10|15?

Possible duplicate of [split string to array using awk](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8009664/split-string-to-array-using-awk) — chris g, Feb 23 '17 at 03:23

Ed Morton · Answer 1 · 2017-02-23T01:45:19.467

3

One way with GNU awk for gensub():

$ awk 'BEGIN{print gensub(/(..)(..)(..)(..)$/,"|\\1|\\2|\\3|\\4",1,201702221015)}'
2017|02|22|10|15

edited Feb 23 '17 at 01:45

answered Feb 22 '17 at 23:58

Ed Morton

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 22 '17 at 22:47

2

@Hanif:Try(though I am not that sure about requirement):

echo "201702221015" | awk '{print substr($0,1,4)"|"substr($0,5,2)"|"substr($0,7,2)"|"substr($0,9,2)"|"substr($0,11,2)}'

answered Feb 22 '17 at 22:47

RavinderSingh13

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 23 '17 at 00:33

2

Another solution, using gnu-awk and FIELDWIDTHS

echo "201702221015" | awk 'BEGIN{FIELDWIDTHS = "4 2 2 2 2"; OFS="|"}$1=$1'

you get,

2017|02|22|10|15

answered Feb 23 '17 at 00:33

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 22 '17 at 23:33

0

Why use awk? sed makes more sense:

echo "201702221015" | sed -E 's/([0-9]{4})([0-9]{2})([0-9]{2})([0-9]{2})([0-9]{2})/\1|\2|\3|\4|\5/'

answered Feb 22 '17 at 23:33

miken32

3

wrt `sed makes more sense` - sed only makes more sense than awk if you're calling a one-liner from the command line to do this one specific thing (but then you should alternatively consider using your shells builtin substitution mechanisms instead of sed). If you're writing a script to manipulate text in general, though, then you should be using awk and so using sed for this part of it wouldn't make any sense. – Ed Morton Feb 23 '17 at 00:06

4 Answers4