Ignoring commas within fields using AWK when there are multiple field separators

Question

I want to parse CSV records like the one below with awk or gawk .

The fields are separated by commas but the last field ( $6 ) is special because it really consists of subfields. These subfields are separated by # as the field separator (or, to be precise, ". # "). This in itself is not a problem: I can use awk -F'(,)|(. # )' to set alternative field separators.

However, there are stray commas in this last field as well that need to be ignored.

Is there a way to solve this with awk , perhaps using FPAT?

Sample record:

  "http://publications.europa.eu/resource/cellar/3befa3c3-a9af-4dac-baa2-92e95cb6e3ab","http://publications.europa.eu/resource/cellar/3befa3c3-a9af-4dac-baa2-92e95cb6e3ab.0002","EU:C:1985:443","61984CJ0239","Gerlach","Judgment of the Court (Third Chamber) of 24 October 1985. # Gerlach & Co. BV, Internationale Expeditie, v Minister van Economische Zaken. # Reference for a preliminary ruling: College van Beroep voor het Bedrijfsleven - Netherlands. # Article 41 ECSC - Anti-dumping duties. # Case 239/84."

Answer 1

Using FPAT feature in gnu-awk , you may be able to do this. We use FPAT to match all double quoted fields or comma separated fields. Finally we split on last field using /\. # / /\. # / regex pattern.

s='"http://publications.europa.eu/resource/cellar/3befa3c3-a9af-4dac-baa2-92e95cb6e3ab","http://publications.europa.eu/resource/cellar/3befa3c3-a9af-4dac-baa2-92e95cb6e3ab.0002","EU:C:1985:443","61984CJ0239","Gerlach","Judgment of the Court (Third Chamber) of 24 October 1985. # Gerlach & Co. BV, Internationale Expeditie, v Minister van Economische Zaken. # Reference for a preliminary ruling: College van Beroep voor het Bedrijfsleven - Netherlands. # Article 41 ECSC - Anti-dumping duties. # Case 239/84."'

awk -v FPAT='"[^"]*"|[^,]+' '{
   # loop through all fields except last one
   for (i=1; i<NF; ++i)
      print i, $i
   # split last field using /\. # / regex and print each token
   for (j=1; j<split($NF, a, /\. # /); ++j)
      print i+j-1, a[j]
}' <<< "$s"

1 "http://publications.europa.eu/resource/cellar/3befa3c3-a9af-4dac-baa2-92e95cb6e3ab"
2 "http://publications.europa.eu/resource/cellar/3befa3c3-a9af-4dac-baa2-92e95cb6e3ab.0002"
3 "EU:C:1985:443"
4 "61984CJ0239"
5 "Gerlach"
6 "Judgment of the Court (Third Chamber) of 24 October 1985
7 Gerlach & Co. BV, Internationale Expeditie, v Minister van Economische Zaken
8 Reference for a preliminary ruling: College van Beroep voor het Bedrijfsleven - Netherlands
9 Article 41 ECSC - Anti-dumping duties