ref: f494dcaba37b0cade9b87f7cf4ba6bbff36c9b66 dir: /testdir/t.split4/
{ a = $0 " " $0 " " $0 " " 123 n = split (a, x, /[ \t][ \t]*/) print n, x[1], x[2], x[3], x[4] }