Setting Multiple Shell Variables from One Run of awk

[Martin McCormick <martin@dc.cis.okstate.edu>]

	Right now, I have a shell script that does the following:

hostname=`echo $NEWDEV |awk 'BEGIN{FS="."}{print $1}'`
domain=`echo $NEWDEV |awk 'BEGIN{FS="."}{print $2}'`
top0=`echo $NEWDEV |awk 'BEGIN{FS="."}{print $3}'`
top1=`echo $NEWDEV |awk 'BEGIN{FS="."}{print $4}'`

	That looks inefficient (dumb) so I ask, is there a way
to assign the fields in an awk expression to shell variables as
one runs awk once?

	Being able to do that would mean one run of awk instead
of the 4 shown here and, if file accesses are involved, there is
only one of those.

	Thanks.

Martin McCormick WB5AGZ  Stillwater, OK 
Systems Engineer
OSU Information Technology Department Telecommunications Services Group