You can just use https://github.com/Nomarian/Awk-Batteries/blob/master/Units/ucsv.awk https://github.com/Nomarian/Awk-Batteries/blob/master/Units/... and use as

You can just use https://github.com/Nomarian/Awk-Batteries/blob/master/Units/ucsv.awk https://github.com/Nomarian/Awk-Batteries/blob/master/Units/... and use as so awk -f ./ucsv.awk -e '{print $5}' Also this > 4,"hello, \"world\"",6 Is incorrect per https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4180 https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4180 so you should just fix it with a sed -i 's/\\"/""/g' and then just parse as normal. https://github.com/Nomarian/Awk-Batteries/wiki/Formats https://github.com/Nomarian/Awk-Batteries/wiki/Formats