[cluckindan]

How is that different from

    echo '999 888' | cut -f2 -d " "

except for the default delimiter being space for awk?

[Eduard]

   echo '999  888' | cut -f2 -d " " # notice two consecutive spaces

returns NULL.

[xorcist]

There are invalid column separators for awk too. To handle consecutive spaces in cut you have squeeze them:

  echo '999  888' | tr -s " " | cut -f2 -d " "

[cluckindan]

Right, that would be expected though? I suppose awk is better for parsing formatted (padded) output.