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sed random \n for "n" range of character occurrences

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Top Forums Shell Programming and Scripting sed random \n for "n" range of character occurrences
# 8  
Old 07-20-2016
I don't really know what I'm doing with that sed command; it's just showing my thought process as to what I want to achieve.

Input example is a blob of text with periods (.) marking sentences. The following output example would have random \n\n breaks, between every random 3 - 6 periods (for example):
Code:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Nam nibh. Nunc  varius facilisis eros. Sed erat. 

In in velit quis arcu ornare laoreet.  Curabitur adipiscing luctus massa. Integer ut purus ac augue commodo  commodo. Nunc nec mi eu justo tempor consectetuer. Etiam vitae nisl. In  dignissim lacus ut ante. 

Cras elit lectus, bibendum a, adipiscing vitae,  commodo et, dui. Ut tincidunt tortor. Donec nonummy, enim in lacinia  pulvinar, velit tellus scelerisque augue, ac posuere libero urna eget  neque. 

Cras ipsum. Vestibulum pretium, lectus nec venenatis volutpat,  purus lectus ultrices risus, a condimentum risus mi et quam.  Pellentesque auctor fringilla neque. Duis eu massa ut lorem iaculis  vestibulum. Maecenas facilisis elit sed justo.

Moderator's Comments:
Mod Comment Please use CODE tags for all sample input, sample output, and code segments (as required by forum rules).
Last edited by Don Cragun; 07-21-2016 at 12:12 AM.. Reason: Add CODE tags.
# 9  
Old 07-21-2016
Given that the input is one single line of text, try
Code:
awk '
        {N = split ($0, T, ".")
         CNT = 1
         while (CNT <= N)       {RND = int(5*(1+rand()))
                                 for (i=CNT; i<CNT+RND && i<N; i++) printf "%s.", T[i]
                                 printf "\n\n"
                                 CNT += RND
                                }
        }
' file
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Nam nibh. Nunc  varius facilisis eros. Sed erat. In in velit quis arcu ornare laoreet.

  Curabitur adipiscing luctus massa. Integer ut purus ac augue commodo  commodo. Nunc nec mi eu justo tempor consectetuer. Etiam vitae nisl. In  dignissim lacus ut ante. Cras elit lectus, bibendum a, adipiscing vitae,  commodo et, dui.

 Ut tincidunt tortor. Donec nonummy, enim in lacinia  pulvinar, velit tellus scelerisque augue, ac posuere libero urna eget  neque. Cras ipsum. Vestibulum pretium, lectus nec venenatis volutpat,  purus lectus ultrices risus, a condimentum risus mi et quam.  Pellentesque auctor fringilla neque. Duis eu massa ut lorem iaculis  vestibulum. Maecenas facilisis elit sed justo.

This User Gave Thanks to RudiC For This Post:
p1ne
# 10  
Old 07-21-2016
Thank you RudiC, that is awesome! I see what you did here
Code:
{RND = int(5*(1+rand()))

as rand() is between 0 and 1 (so between 5 and 5*2 periods). I can adjust values to create new ranges. T (or a) is array field of split().
# 11  
Old 07-21-2016
Yes, split($0, %, ".") creates an array named T with each element of T[] containing the text between periods in the input line. If you'd like to get rid of leading whitespace characters at the start of each paragraph, you might want to consider this slight modification of RudiC's suggestion:
Code:
awk '
{	N = split ($0, T, ".")
	CNT = 1
	while (CNT <= N) {
		RND = int(5*(1+rand()))
		for (i=CNT; i<CNT+RND && i<N; i++) {
			if(i == CNT) sub(/^[[:space:]]*/, "", T[i])
			printf "%s.", T[i]
		}
		printf "\n\n"
		CNT += RND
	}
}' file

If you'd like to try this on a Solaris/SunOS system, change awk to /usr/xpg4/bin/awk.

Note that on some versions of awk neither of these suggestions will work if the single-line input file is longer than 2048 bytes (or whatever the command:
Code:
getconf LINE_MAX

returns on your system if it isn't 2048).
These 2 Users Gave Thanks to Don Cragun For This Post:
p1ne RudiC
# 12  
Old 07-22-2016
Thanks very much Don. That's perfect; replaces this step I was doing:
Code:
awk '{$1=$1}1' in > left-trim
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