How do I call the split function in awk to split a string on "\."?

Question

How do I use the split function to split by "\."?

For example, first consider splitting by ::

echo "03:26:12" | awk '{split($0,a,":"); print a[3] a[2] a[1]}'

Which produces this output:

122603

But if the incoming string is instead:

echo "03\.26\.12" | awk '{split($0,a,???); print a[3] a[2] a[1]}'

With desired output:

122603

What should the ??? be?

Answer 1

echo "03\.26\.12" | awk '{split($0,a,"\\\."); print a[3] a[2] a[1]}'

This gives the same output.

Answer 2

You must escape both characters:

echo "03\.26\.12" | awk '{split($0,a,/\\\./); print a[3] a[2] a[1]}'

Result:

122603