Selecting Specific Records from a File 2

[tbohon]

I have a file - each record quite long - which starts out in the following general format:

07/11/2007 00:00:10|field2|07112007|field4|MSH|^~\&|SPC|[COLOR=red]O[/color]|IM|E|

and I need to be able to select only records with an O in the indicated location - everything else to be ignored.

I had thought that using something like

facind=`awk 'BEGIN{FS=OFS="|"}{print $8}' homl.work

would put the value of that field in variable facind but I can't get it to work.

Would appreciate someone pointing me in the correct direction.

Note that the system is AIX 5.2 using Korn shell.

Thanks!

Tom

"My mind is like a steel whatchamacallit ...

 

[PHV]

Why not simply this ?

awk '$8=="|"' homl.work

Hope This Helps, PH.
FAQ219-2884
FAQ181-2886

 

[tbohon]

Probably because I always overcomplicate things ...

Thanks gain, PH - you keep saving my 'bacon' here.

Tom

"My mind is like a steel whatchamacallit ...

 

[geirendre]

Pardon me asking PHV, but how can that work?
Thought you had to do like this:

awk -F'|' '$8=="O"' homl.work

to "select only records with an O in the indicated location"
But then I'm no AWK-expert... ;-)

 

[PHV]

I must confess I've typed too fast and you're absolutely right geirendre.
I suppose Tom got the idea and corrected my typos.