My CSV file format. Notice that the 6th row has multiple comma separated values for the same column.
a,b,c,d,e,f
g,h,i,j,k,l
m,n,o,p,q,r
s,t,u,v,w,x
y,z,ab,bc,cd,de
"a,b,c",d,e,f,g,"h,i,j"
Now, If I fire awk -F, '{print $1}', then for the 6th row, I get incorrect results.
$ awk -F, '{print $1}' test.csv
a
g
m
s
y
"a
How can I handle these multiple comma separated values for the same column with awk or with any other utility (sed, cut etc)?
You can use GNU-awk with a regex that captures between ""'s:
➜ /tmp cat test.csv
a,b,c,d,e,f
g,h,i,j,k,l
m,n,o,p,q,r
s,t,u,v,w,x
y,z,ab,bc,cd,de
"a,b,c",d,e,f,g,"h,i,j"
➜ /tmp
➜ /tmp
➜ /tmp awk 'BEGIN { FPAT = "([^,]*)|(\"[^\"]+\")"; } { print $1 }' test.csv
a
g
m
s
y
"a,b,c"
➜ /tmp
The FPAT value is a regex that describes the content of each field (col).
So in your CSV example, the 'content of each field' is any value that is (optionally) wrapped in quotes ("").
For more information, refer to the gawk manual:
