#!/bin/sh awk ' BEGIN{ number="[-+]?([0-9]+|[0-9]*\\.[0-9]+)([eE][+-]?[0-9]+)?" operator ="[+-*/]" begin="^(" end=")$" space="[ \\t]*" parenthesis="\\(.*\\)" } { print "-----------------------" print get_pattern(parenthesis) print "-----------------------" } function get_pattern(pattern ,a,n) { n=match($0,pattern) a=$0 $0=substr($0,n+RLENGTH) return substr(a,n,RLENGTH) } ' $@