Hi Guys,

I have a file as follows:

a 1
b 786
c 90709
d 99
a 9875
b 989
c 887
d 111

a 1 9875
b 786 989
c 90709 887
d 99 111

awk '{a[$1]=a[$1]?a[$1] FS $NF:$0}END{for(i in a) print a[i]}' infile | sort

a perl solution which you can extend easily for similar other cases too..

$ cat t.pl 
while(<>)  {
    # take the first word, use it as key and build a hash.
    ( $key, $value ) = /^(\w+)\s+(.*)$/;

    push @{$hash{$key}}, $value;
}

while ( ($key, $value) = each %hash )  {
    print "$key ";
    print "@$value";
    print "\n";
}

$ cat input-file 
a 1
b 786
c 90709
d 99
a 9875
b 989
c 887
d 111
$ perl t.pl input-file
c 90709 887
a 1 9875
b 786 989
d 99 111

Thanks guys.

Can I use cut and paste?

For example can I cut the values for the second set of a,b,c,d numbers and paste them in the second column, the third set of a,b,c,d numbers and paste them in the third column and so on?