Question

I have a file:

AA BB CC DD
BB CC DD AA 
BB CC DDA AA
CC DD AA BB

This command prints the line:

$ awk '{if($3=="DD") print}' file
BB CC DD AA

I want this condition to write to the array. This command does not work:

$ awk '{if($3=="DD") split($0, a, RS); print a[1]}' file

BB CC DD AA 
BB CC DD AA 
BB CC DD AA

Thank you for your help.

EDIT:

I wanted to write to an array of lines from the pattern ‘DD’.

These are good solutions:

awk '{if($3=="DD") {split($0, a, RS); print a[1];}}' file
awk '$3=="DD"{split($0, a, RS); print a[1];}' file

Thank you for your help.

Answer 1

You’re printing the result regardless of whether $3 == "DD", which seems unlikely to be what you want.

You’re also splitting with RS which is not set here so for sample output, compare:

awk '{if($3=="DD") {split($0, a); print a[1];}}' file

which splits with FS instead (hence prints just BB for the above).