Extract data from one file and save to another - regex

Question

I'm running ansible playbook task using shell command to extract data from file based on regex match and save it to another file.
I tried using awk and sed but not able to get the regex working.
awk '$NF == "-m.comment.*\""' iptable.txt" > file1.txt
sed 's/\/.*' iptable.txt > file2.txt
I need to save any content from -m comment till the double quotes. to file1.txt and remaining content to file2.txt. If the line doesnot have comment field, then it should be saved only to file2.txt.
-P INPUT ACCEPT
-A INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport 80 -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -p icmp -m state --state NEW -m comment --comment "Echo Request" -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -p tcp -m state --state NEW -m comment --comment "tcp" -j ACCEPT
Expected output:
cat file1.txt
-m comment --comment "Echo Request"
-m comment --comment "tcp"
cat file2.txt
-P INPUT ACCEPT
-A INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport 80 -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -p icmp -m state --state NEW -j ACCEPT
-A INPUT -p tcp -m state --state NEW -j ACCEPT

Answer 1

With GNU awk for the 3rd arg to match():
awk 'match($0,/(.*)(-m.comment.*")(.*)/,a) {
print a[2] " > foo"
print a[1] a[3] " > bar"
}' file
-m comment --comment "Echo Request" > foo
-A INPUT -p icmp -m state --state NEW -j ACCEPT > bar
With any awk:
awk 'match($0,/-m.comment.*"/) {
print substr($0,RSTART,RLENGTH) " > foo"
print substr($0,1,RSTART-1) substr($0,RSTART+RLENGTH) " > bar"
}' file
Just change " > foo" to > "foo" and ditto for bar to really write to new files.
If that's not exactly what you need then edit your question to clarify your requirements and provide more truly representative sample input/output.
Oh and when you wrote:
$NF == "-m.comment.*\""
There's nothing wrong with -m.comment.*\" as a regexp per-se BUT == is telling awk to do a literal string comparison, not a regexp comparison.
Given your updated question, just tweak the above to:
awk 'match($0,/(.*)(-m.comment.*")(.*)/,a) {
print a[2] " > foo"
print a[1] a[3] " > bar"
next
}
{ print $0 " > bar" }' file
-P INPUT ACCEPT > bar
-A INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport 80 -j ACCEPT > bar
-m comment --comment "Echo Request" > foo
-A INPUT -p icmp -m state --state NEW -j ACCEPT > bar
-m comment --comment "tcp" > foo
-A INPUT -p tcp -m state --state NEW -j ACCEPT > bar