How to do text processing using awk to cut last field in a line?

Question

I am having this scenario and need if I can improvise the awk output.

1. cat example.txt

   "id": "/subscriptions/fbfa3437-c63c-4ed7-b9d3-fe595221950d/resourceGroups/rg-ooty/providers/Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/fb11b768-4d9f-4e83-b7dc-ee677f496fc9",
   "id": "/subscriptions/fbfa3437-c63c-4ed7-b9d3-fe595221950d/resourceGroups/rg-ooty/providers/Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/fbee83e8-a84a-4b22-8197-fc9cc924801f",
   "id": "/subscriptions/fbfa3437-c63c-4ed7-b9d3-fe595221950d/resourceGroups/rg-ooty/providers/Microsoft.Compute/virtualMachines/fc224f83-57f4-41eb-aee3-78f18d055704",
   

2. I am looking to cut the pattern after /virtualMachines/

3. Hence, used the below awk command to get the output.

   cat example.txt | awk '{print $2}' | awk -F"/" '{print $(NF)}' | awk -F'",' '{print $1}'
   fb11b768-4d9f-4e83-b7dc-ee677f496fc9
   fbee83e8-a84a-4b22-8197-fc9cc924801f
   fc224f83-57f4-41eb-aee3-78f18d055704
   

4. Is there any way I can use some options like 'getline' or multiple awk options in single awk execution or better ways to improve the command to get the output?

Please suggest.

Answer 1

Use " and / as field separators and print second last field:

awk -F '["/]' '{print $(NF-1)}' file

Output:

fb11b768-4d9f-4e83-b7dc-ee677f496fc9
fbee83e8-a84a-4b22-8197-fc9cc924801f
fc224f83-57f4-41eb-aee3-78f18d055704

Answer 2

If the spacing of example.txt is as consistent as it seems, then it's simpler to use cut with the -characters count option:

cut -c 127-162 example.txt

Output:

fb11b768-4d9f-4e83-b7dc-ee677f496fc9
fbee83e8-a84a-4b22-8197-fc9cc924801f
fc224f83-57f4-41eb-aee3-78f18d055704

Answer 3

You could also use sed for this:

sed 's#.*/\([^/]*\)",#\1#' example.txt

Matches anything .* forwardslash / then captures \( any number of non-forwardslash characters [^/]*, ends the capture \) followed by a quote & comma to end ",, and replaces this with the captured group (anything between the forwardslash and the ", at the end.