File: gawk.info,  Node: Skipping intervening,  Next: Allowing trailing data,  Prev: Fixed width data,  Up: Constant Size

4.6.2 Skipping Intervening Fields
---------------------------------

Starting in version 4.2, each field width may optionally be preceded by
a colon-separated value specifying the number of characters to skip
before the field starts.  Thus, the preceding program could be rewritten
to specify 'FIELDWIDTHS' like so:

     BEGIN  { FIELDWIDTHS = "8 1:5 4:7 6 1:6 1:6 2:33" }

   This strips away some of the white space separating the fields.  With
such a change, the program produces the following results:

     hzang    ttyV3 50
     eklye    ttyV5 0
     dportein ttyV6 107
     gierd    ttyD3 1
     dave     ttyD4 0
     brent    ttyp0 286
     dave     ttyq4 1296000