awk using space in character class - awk

Question

Would anybody be able to tell me how to use awk to parse columns based on a character class in with a space in it? I have some arbitrary input and I'm trying to parse it using:
somecommand | awk -F'[:space:]' '{print $2}'
I have also tried
somecommand | awk -F'[ ]' '{print $2}'
and
somecommand | awk -F'[[:space:]]' '{print $2}'
I know for sure that the command below works, although I can't use it because I am trying to parse upon multiple delimiters, space being one of them (colon being the other), which is why I'm trying to use a character class.
somecommand | awk -F' ' '{print $2}'
The problem is that I am getting spaces in the output of the first three examples this, which I obviously would not expect. I am certain that I am actually getting spaces in the output because I am piping the output to "od -a" and see the character is actually a space. I am using GNU Awk 3.1.7. I appreciate your help :-)
]$ cat hi.txt | awk -F'[[:blank:]]' '{print $2,$3}'
*
*
*
*
*
]$ cat hi.txt
* PID: 4240 Sessions: 0 Processed: 1 Uptime: 3m 28, URL : http://127.0.0.1:56784, Password: F3N04418IlVe9230Vs2bnJ7lPk9KE2PIzhlSOrv173X
* PID: 4247 Sessions: 0 Processed: 0 Uptime: 3m 28, URL : http://127.0.0.1:59918, Password: g0jOTdEawcbFluPMGawbbeSo3u7mQvYlT5P136ymELh
* PID: 4254 Sessions: 0 Processed: 0 Uptime: 3m 28, URL : http://127.0.0.1:60870, Password: C9QHDrxfCPZjZd1AiIvbSdnaG3rI0QuvfUf4stvdqww
* PID: 4261 Sessions: 0 Processed: 0 Uptime: 3m 28, URL : http://127.0.0.1:56414, Password: cnPMFUXq6f6AtkcqOCqba7Bx76mC3K7uX7XxCfIDYYq
* PID: 4268 Sessions: 0 Processed: 0 Uptime: 3m 28, URL : http://127.0.0.1:53253, Password: yAff1NmrTz4B6kUKCsZ0HPvA75bWAvmOl8YHUi9aOgo
]$ awk --version
GNU Awk 3.1.7
Copyright (C) 1989, 1991-2009 Free Software Foundation.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.
~]$ cat hi.txt | od -a
0000000 sp sp * sp P I D : sp 4 2 4 0 sp sp sp
0000020 sp S e s s i o n s : sp 0 sp sp sp sp
0000040 sp sp sp P r o c e s s e d : sp 1 sp
0000060 sp sp sp sp sp sp U p t i m e : sp 3 m
0000100 sp 2 8 , sp sp sp sp U R L sp sp sp sp sp
0000120 : sp h t t p : / / 1 2 7 . 0 . 0
0000140 . 1 : 5 6 7 8 4 , sp P a s s w o
0000160 r d : sp F 3 N 0 4 4 1 8 I l V e
0000200 9 2 3 0 V s 2 b n J 7 l P k 9 K
0000220 E 2 P I z h l S O r v 1 7 3 X nl
0000240 sp sp * sp P I D : sp 4 2 4 7 sp sp sp
0000260 sp S e s s i o n s : sp 0 sp sp sp sp
0000300 sp sp sp P r o c e s s e d : sp 0 sp
0000320 sp sp sp sp sp sp U p t i m e : sp 3 m
0000340 sp 2 8 , sp sp sp sp U R L sp sp sp sp sp
0000360 : sp h t t p : / / 1 2 7 . 0 . 0
0000400 . 1 : 5 9 9 1 8 , sp P a s s w o
0000420 r d : sp g 0 j O T d E a w c b F
0000440 l u P M G a w b b e S o 3 u 7 m
0000460 Q v Y l T 5 P 1 3 6 y m E L h nl
0000500 sp sp * sp P I D : sp 4 2 5 4 sp sp sp
0000520 sp S e s s i o n s : sp 0 sp sp sp sp
0000540 sp sp sp P r o c e s s e d : sp 0 sp
0000560 sp sp sp sp sp sp U p t i m e : sp 3 m
0000600 sp 2 8 , sp sp sp sp U R L sp sp sp sp sp
0000620 : sp h t t p : / / 1 2 7 . 0 . 0
0000640 . 1 : 6 0 8 7 0 , sp P a s s w o
0000660 r d : sp C 9 Q H D r x f C P Z j
0000700 Z d 1 A i I v b S d n a G 3 r I
0000720 0 Q u v f U f 4 s t v d q w w nl
0000740 sp sp * sp P I D : sp 4 2 6 1 sp sp sp
0000760 sp S e s s i o n s : sp 0 sp sp sp sp
0001000 sp sp sp P r o c e s s e d : sp 0 sp
0001020 sp sp sp sp sp sp U p t i m e : sp 3 m
0001040 sp 2 8 , sp sp sp sp U R L sp sp sp sp sp
0001060 : sp h t t p : / / 1 2 7 . 0 . 0
0001100 . 1 : 5 6 4 1 4 , sp P a s s w o
0001120 r d : sp c n P M F U X q 6 f 6 A
0001140 t k c q O C q b a 7 B x 7 6 m C
0001160 3 K 7 u X 7 X x C f I D Y Y q nl
0001200 sp sp * sp P I D : sp 4 2 6 8 sp sp sp
0001220 sp S e s s i o n s : sp 0 sp sp sp sp
0001240 sp sp sp P r o c e s s e d : sp 0 sp
0001260 sp sp sp sp sp sp U p t i m e : sp 3 m
0001300 sp 2 8 , sp sp sp sp U R L sp sp sp sp sp
0001320 : sp h t t p : / / 1 2 7 . 0 . 0
0001340 . 1 : 5 3 2 5 3 , sp P a s s w o
0001360 r d : sp y A f f 1 N m r T z 4 B
0001400 6 k U K C s Z 0 H P v A 7 5 b W
0001420 A v m O l 8 Y H U i 9 a O g o nl
0001440
[a.cri.dsullivan#aaa-arnor04 ~]$ cat hi.txt | awk -F'[[:blank:]]' '{print $4,$6}'
PID:
PID:
PID:
PID:
PID:
[a.cri.dsullivan#aaa-arnor04 ~]$ cat hi.txt | awk -F'[[:blank:]]' '{print $4,$7}'
PID:
PID:
PID:
PID:
PID:
[a.cri.dsullivan#aaa-arnor04 ~]$ cat hi.txt | awk -F'[[:space:]]' '{print $4,$7}'
PID:
PID:
PID:
PID:
PID:

Answer 1

Here's a space class with semicolon, commas and colons:
[[:space:];:,]
And some other variations:
[[:blank:][:cntrl:]]
[ \t,:;]
Update
Try this one:
somecommand | awk -F'[[:space:]]+' '{print $2}' ## + or *, they're probably just similar.

Answer 2

There are a couple of different Field Separator values that might do what you want:
FS="[[:space:]:]+"
or
FS="[[:space:]]+|:"
or
FS="[[:space:]]*:[[:space:]]+"
or something else. Given the input data you posted at https://gist.github.com/anonymous/a007032c9facd9e71dff, that last one actually looks like what you really want.
If you go with FS="[[:space:]:]+"it will break your URL value (e.g. http://127.0.0.1:56784) into 3 separate sections around the :s and the other alternatives will have similar negative impacts for various fields.