Using awk to print characters of specific index on a line

Question

Alright, so I know it is quite simple to print specific arguments of a line using $:

$ cat file hello world  $ awk '{print $1}' file hello 

But what if I want to print chars 2 through 8? or 3 through 7? Is that possible with awk?

Answer 1

awk '{print substr($0,2,6)}' file 

the syntax for substr() is

substr(string,start index,length)

Answer 2

Yes. You can use substr function :

http://www.starlink.rl.ac.uk/docs/sc4.htx/node38.html

In your case - for print chars from 2 through 8:

echo "hello" | awk '{ print substr( $0, 2, 6 ) }' 

result is:

ello