#558: /topic/gilbert/ascii-header

Yes, I think it does what I think it does. :slight_smile: THis prints the
separator as I would expect it to:

    echo -e "#separator ;\n1;2;3;4\n" | awk '/#separator/ {FS=$2; print $2}'

But it doesn't apply the new FS, at least on my Mac awk.

Anyway, let's just pick something and go ahead. I still prefer the
whitespace here[1] so why don't we always make the first line look
like this

    {{{
    #seperator \t
    }}}

(Indeed with the standard C escaping for non-printable characters).

[1] Because the escaping makes sure there's no whitespace in the
separator itself.

Yes, I think it does what I think it does. :slight_smile: THis prints the
separator as I would expect it to:

     echo -e "#separator ;\n1;2;3;4\n" | awk '/#separator/ {FS=$2; print $2}'

But it doesn't apply the new FS, at least on my Mac awk.

I don't know but it works on mine. What's the problem you are facing? The new FS will only apply to the following lines, not the current one. (And you'll also need a rule for lines without /#separator/):

$ echo -e "#separator ;\n1;2;3;4\n" |\
    awk '/#separator/ {FS=$2; print "sep",$2} !/#separator/ { print "field3",$3} '
sep ;
field3 3
field3

$ uname -a
Darwin tongariro 10.8.0 Darwin Kernel Version 10.8.0: Tue Jun 7 16:33:36 PDT 2011; root:xnu-1504.15.3~1/RELEASE_I386 i386 i386

$ which awk
/usr/bin/awk

cu
Gregor