Hi all,

I have the following problem and hope someone could help me.

I have 184 files, each with 5 columns (c1, c2, c3, c4, c5). I am only interrested in column 5, and would like to paste column 5 from all the 184 files into one file. I have tried the following with two files

awk '{print $5)' file1 file2 | paste -d" " >! a06.txt

The above command line does work, but it pastes colum 5 in one column in the new file (a06.txt). I want it to do it side by side, i.e. c5file1 c5file2, instead of c5file1
c5file2
At the end, I expect to have a file with c5file2 c5file2 c5file3....c5file184.

Thanks for your help!

You have posted this request in the incorrect area of the forums. I'll think about the solution and get back to you once a moderator has moved the thread.

Thanks!

I am new to the forum, and could not figure out where to add new post.

awkliker

thread moved!!!

This smells like homework, but here is some of the answer. First I would set up a loop to go from 1...184 and dump the awk results to a file say 'result.txt'. Next I would use the paste command to put them in your desired format.
But for the way you have listed the problem here is the answer
awk '{print $5}' file1 ...... file184>result.txt;paste -s a06.txt

Sorry it is late here. I made a typo. Here is the answer
awk '{print $5}' file1 ...... file184>result.txt;paste -s result.txt > a06.txt

not tested but I would would


What is the "desired" format?