> I am new to Awk programming.
>
> Given a text table with the following sample entry:
>
> [ 8] SSID[ [HOME]] BSSID[04:9F:xx:xx:xx:xx] channel[ 6]
> frequency[2437] numsta[1] rssi[-63] noise[-75] beacon[98] cap[1411]
> dtim[0] rate[450] enc[Group-AES-CCMP CCMP PSK2 ]
>
> How do you use Awk to quickly & easily break it into:
>
> bssid="04:9F:xx:xx:xx:xx";
> ssid[bssid]="[HOME]";
> channel[bssid]="6";
> frequency[bssid]="2437";
> ....
> rate[bssid]="450;
> enc[bssid]="Group-AES-CCMP CCMP PSK2";

Found your issue interesting enough to attempt a solution:

#../sandbox/test.awk
BEGIN { FS="\\[[ []*" ; RS="]" }
{ sub("\n","")
for (i=1; i<=NF; i+=2) {
($i ~ /^$/) ? $i = "Station" : sub(/^ */,"\t",$i)
if ($(i+1) != "")
printf "%s[bssid] = %s\n", $i,$(i+1)
} }

$ nawk -f test.awk test.data
Station[bssid] = 8
SSID[bssid] = HOME
BSSID[bssid] = 04:9F:xx:xx:xx:xx
channel[bssid] = 6
frequency[bssid] = 2437
numsta[bssid] = 1
rssi[bssid] = -63
noise[bssid] = -75
beacon[bssid] = 98
cap[bssid] = 1411
dtim[bssid] = 0
rate[bssid] = 450
enc[bssid] = Group-AES-CCMP CCMP PSK2

On 1/3/2024 11:59 pm, jeorge@invalid.invalid wrote:
>> I am new to Awk programming.
>>
>> Given a text table with the following sample entry:
>>

Being new to Awk programming, I am amazed to learn that Awk can
automaticlaly use a string as an array index. There is also automatic
type-conversion. Very much like Visual Foxpro and other dBase dialects I
am more fluent with! :)

But all dBase dialects cannot directly use a string as an array index.
You can work around it using macro substitution, but it's not direct
solution like Awk array.