In GNU awk there is good and useful extention, the optional
third parameter of 'match' function of GNU awk.

`match(STRING, REGEXP [, ARRAY])'
...
     If ARRAY is present, it is cleared, and then the 0th element of
     ARRAY is set to the entire portion of STRING matched by REGEXP.
     If REGEXP contains parentheses, the integer-indexed elements of
     ARRAY are set to contain the portion of STRING matching the
     corresponding parenthesized subexpression.  For example:
...
     In addition, beginning with `gawk' 3.1.2, multidimensional
     subscripts are available providing the start index and length of
     each matched subexpression:

          $ echo foooobazbarrrrr |
          > gawk '{ match($0, /(fo+).+(bar*)/, arr)
          >           print arr[1], arr[2]
          >           print arr[1, "start"], arr[1, "length"]
          >           print arr[2, "start"], arr[2, "length"]
          > }'
          -| foooo barrrrr
          -| 1 5
          -| 9 7

-- 
Best regards, Aleksey Cheusov.