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So, I have a data file and I would like a match to occur only if a match is found between the 2nd and third Vertical Bars (|)

So given this data sample, I if I search for 'wilson' I want the 2nd line to return, but not the 3rd and 5th lines which also contain the term 'wilson'.

The data sample:

| 2015-08-21 - 10:15 | jones | view | Main.Home | | 172.29.192.106 | | 2015-08-21 - 10:31 | wilson | view | Main.Home | | 172.19.6.107 | | 2015-08-21 - 11:40 | smith | resetpasswd | wilson | Mozilla | 172.19.15.105 | | 2015-08-21 - 11:41 | james | view | Main.ChangePassword | | 172.19.15.102 | | 2015-08-21 - 11:41 | james | changepasswd | wilson | | 172.19.15.102 | | 2015-08-21 - 11:41 | james | view | Main.Home | | 172.19.15.102 | | 2015-08-22 - 08:31 | doe | view | Main.Info | | 172.19.6.103 |
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2 Answers 2

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For your sample input:

$ cat /tmp/data | 2015-08-21 - 10:15 | jones | view | Main.Home | | 172.29.192.106 | | 2015-08-21 - 10:31 | wilson | view | Main.Home | | 172.19.6.107 | | 2015-08-21 - 11:40 | smith | resetpasswd | wilson | Mozilla | 172.19.15.105 | | 2015-08-21 - 11:41 | james | view | Main.ChangePassword | | 172.19.15.102 | | 2015-08-21 - 11:41 | james | changepasswd | wilson | | 172.19.15.102 | | 2015-08-21 - 11:41 | james | view | Main.Home | | 172.19.15.102 | | 2015-08-22 - 08:31 | doe | view | Main.Info | | 172.19.6.103 |

You can use awk:

$ awk '-F|' 'BEGIN { OFS = "|" }{ if ($3 ~ "wilson") { print } }' /tmp/data | 2015-08-21 - 10:31 | wilson | view | Main.Home | | 172.19.6.107 |

Instead of $3 ~ "wilson" you could also use $3 == " wilson " assuming that there will always be spaces surrounding the field.

To answer your follow-up question, you could wrap it in a Bash script:

$ cat foo.sh #/bin/bash names="$(cat patlist.txt)" for name in ${names}; do awk -F'|' '$3 == " '"${name}"' "' /tmp/data done $ cat patlist.txt wilson jones $ bash foo.sh | 2015-08-21 - 10:31 | wilson | view | Main.Home | | 172.19.6.107 | | 2015-08-21 - 10:15 | jones | view | Main.Home | | 172.29.192.106 |
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  • 3
    +1 a bit more terse awk -F'|' '$3 == " wilson "' FILE Commented Aug 26, 2015 at 18:27
  • This works well, however, if I wanted to replace "wilson" with a list of user names say in patlist.txt, how I could I use awk this way? Commented Aug 26, 2015 at 18:45
  • @OffTheGold Replace each wilson with a different (individual) name or all of them with the same? Commented Aug 26, 2015 at 19:51
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Easiest would be to tie the regex to some other field, e.g. :[0-9][0-9] | wilson, though this risks false positives. More complicated would be instead to use awk and split the data into columns, then apply the regex in awk against only the second column.

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