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Re: Field separator ") "

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On Apr 8, 4:42 pm, pk <p...@pk.invalid> wrote:
> On Fri, 8 Apr 2011 13:41:06 -0700 (PDT)
>
>
>
> Philip <phil.ganc...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > How can I use ") " as the field separator? The manual says that if FS
> > is a string of more than one character, then it is treated as a
> > regular expression. But when I try this it does not work:
>
> > awk -F '\) ' '{print "hello"; exit}' mydatafie
> > awk: warning: escape sequence `\(' treated as plain `('
> > awk: fatal: Invalid regular expression: / (/
>
> Use -F '\\) '  or -F ' \\('

Thanks!

Why is that? As far as I can tell, Awk receives the string that is in
the single quotes unchanged. So -F '\( ' should work.

And why does '\(' without the space work?

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Field separator ") " Philip <phil.ganchev@gmail.com> - 2011-04-08 13:41 -0700
  Re: Field separator ") " pk <pk@pk.invalid> - 2011-04-08 21:42 +0100
    Re: Field separator ") " Philip <phil.ganchev@gmail.com> - 2011-04-08 13:50 -0700
      Re: Field separator ") " pk <pk@pk.invalid> - 2011-04-08 22:01 +0100

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