Re: Is it appropriate to ask user-oriented questions on this list?

[Bob Proulx]

cga2000 wrote:
> I'm having trouble getting awk parsing to work when fields are
> separated by two different characters (space and colon).

You may have to split into fields and then trim each field for
whitespace.

> First off I was wondering whether this is the correct place to ask.

After I convince you to install GNU awk there won't be any question. :-)

> Also, I am running this on debian linux and the implementation of awk
> that was installed by default is called "mawk".

This has been an often debated topic.  Let's not open it here.  But do
please try GNU awk.  Also installing 'gawk-doc' from the non-free
depot is also highly recommended.

  sudo apt-get install gawk

As far as your awk question is concerned, can you post a small example
that illustrates the issue?  Something like the following would be
great.  Then we could all follow along.

  echo "one: two :three:four" | awk -F: '{print$2}'

Bob