awk field separator

[James Rowell]

> From ale-owner at cc.gatech.edu Thu Feb 22 15:10:20 1996
> From: ferrolb at systecinc.com (Blackmon, Ferrol)
> To: ale at cc.gatech.edu ('ale at cc.gatech.edu')
> X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail via PostalUnion/SMTP for Windows NT
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> Organization: Systems Techniques, Inc
> Date: Thu, 22 Feb 1996 14:49:45 -0500
> Subject: awk field separator
> Sender: owner-ale at cc.gatech.edu
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> 
> 
> Hey folks,
> 
> Is there a way in awk to specify multiple field separators?  Like FS =   
> ";" | ":" | "\"  I know this doesn't work, I just wanted to show what I'm   
> trying to accomplish.  BTW, FS=";:\" doesn't work B/C it thinks I mean   
> the entire string ";:\".  Has anyone tackled a problem like this before.
> 
What I've done in the past was to translate the field separators into a 
single field separator then call up awk. For example,

<infile tr \; : | tr \\ : | awk -F: '{whatever...}'

James