Question

I have a file as below:

10temp3
20/temp4
28 temp 5

I am using the below command for splitting the lines and get the last number in the line.

awk -F"temp" '{print $NF}' temp3

the ouput i got is :

> awk -F"temp" '{print $NF}' temp3
10temp3
20/temp4
28 temp 5

Surprisingly if i use nawk i am getting the expected output.

> nawk -F"temp" '{print $NF}' temp3
3
4
 5
> 

May i know the reason why?
Is awk not supporting the string mentioned as a separator?

Answer 1

Indeed Solaris awk only considers a single character. I’d say it’s probably due to tradition, and exactly the reason why nawk is shipped, as well.

The -F switch is really special: it’s taking the first character of your quoted string, and discarding the rest, so the t remains — which stands for “look for tab as field separator”.