Ubuntu – How to separate fields with space or tab in awk

Using awk

from=1; to=3; delimiter="|"; awk -F"$delimiter" -v from="$from" -v to="$to" '!/^[[:blank:]]*$/ {printf "Index="; for(i=from; i<=to; i++) {printf $i; if(i<to) {printf "|"};} printf "\n"; printf "Key="; for(i=to+1; i<=NF; i++) {printf $i; if(i<NF) {printf "|"};} printf "\n"}' foo

More readable

from=1; to=3; delimiter="|";
awk -F"$delimiter" -v from="$from" -v to="$to" '!/^[[:blank:]]*$/ {
    printf "Index=";
    for(i=from; i<=to; i++) {
        printf $i;
        if(i<to) {
            printf "|"
        };
    }
    printf "\n";
    printf "Key=";
    for(i=to+1; i<=NF; i++) {
        printf $i;
        if(i<NF) {
            printf "|"
        };
    }
    printf "\n"
}' foo

Example

$ cat foo
a|b|c d e|1|2|3
a|b c|d|1|2|2 3

$ from=1; to=3; delimiter="|"; awk -F"$delimiter" -v from="$from" -v to="$to" '!/^[[:blank:]]*$/ {printf "Index="; for(i=from; i<=to; i++) {printf $i; if(i<to) {printf "|"};} printf "\n"; printf "Key="; for(i=to+1; i<=NF; i++) {printf $i; if(i<NF) {printf "|"};} printf "\n"}' foo
Index=a|b|c d e
Key=1|2|3
Index=a|b c|d
Key=1|2|2 3

I would suggest defining multiple field separators (i.e. :, ,, and }) and then select the fields accordingly:

awk 'BEGIN { FS = "[:,}]" } { print $3,$5,$6,$7 } '