Re: [bug-gawk] Gawk Enhancement Suggestion

[Aharon Robbins]

Hi Ed.

Re the below. See the node "Cut Program" in the gawk manual.
Adaptation into a function should be straightforward.

A diff to redo that section as a function + code to call it will
be cheerily reviewed and most likely accepted.

Thanks,

Arnold

> Date: Fri, 02 Dec 2011 07:36:50 -0600
> From: Ed Morton <address@hidden>
> To: address@hidden
> Subject: [bug-gawk] Gawk Enhancement Suggestion
>
> Arnold - could we get a "cut()" function for gawk similar to the UNIX
> one of the same name that just lets people select specific fields or
> ranges of fields?  Below is some details (copied from something I posted
> at comp.lang.awk).
>
> Regards,
>
>      Ed.
>
> A function that returns a string of selected fields is very often all we 
> need. e.g.:
>
> print cut($0,3)       # print from the 3rd field to the end of the record 
> using 
> FS as separator
> print cut($0,3,",")   # print from the 3rd field to the end of the record 
> using 
> "," as separator
> print cut($0,"3-7")   # print from the 3rd field to the 7th field
> print cut($0,"3,5,7") # print the 3rd, 5th, and 7th fields
>
> The separating substring between the fields would just be whatever separator 
> preceeded the trailing fields. So, with this input (with leading blanks):
>
>      a b    c  d
>
> the following code snippets would produce the output that follows them:
>
> print cut($0,"1,3")
> a    c
>
> print cut($0,"1,3",/[[:blank:]]+/)
>   b
>
> print cut($0,"1-3")
> a b    c
>
> print cut($0,"2,4")
> b  d
>
> print cut($0,"1-4")
> a b    c  d
>
> Obviously $0 can be replaced by any string and cut() should take an optional 
> 4th 
> arg to specify the separator in it's returned string:
>
> print cut($0,"1,3",FS,OFS)
> a c
>
> print cut($0,"1,3",/[[:blank:]]+/,"#")
> #b
>
> print cut($0,"1-3",FS,OFS)
> a b c
>
> print cut($0,"2,4",FS,":")
> b:d
>
> print cut($0,"1-4",FS,"|")
> a|b|c|d
>