need help to remove spaces from first column

tayyabq8 · #1 (**permalink**) 01-26-2006

Hi,

Here is sample data which I have:

Code:

column#1                   column#2          column#3

001A 50005                 ROCKER ADJ        00010000100018UTIRR                  
001A 50020                 CRANKSHAFT        0003445ES             
001A 52201                 SPARKPLUG         0000010000100016UTIRR
001ALD626000  GAR          PINTURA BI        21000000271100011

I want to remove all white spaces from first column, but thing which is confusing me that how we'll define the width of first column, since number and location of spaces are arbitrary in first column. after editing my output should look like this:

Code:

column#1                   column#2          column#3

001A50005                 ROCKER ADJ        00010000100018UTIRR 
001A50020                 CRANKSHAFT        0003445ES
001A52201                 SPARKPLUG         0000010000100016UTIRR
001ALD626000GAR           PINTURA BI        21000000271100011

any idea about how we can acheive this?

Regards,
Tayyab

futurelet · #2 (**permalink**) 01-26-2006

Awk:

Code:

{ col1 = substr($0,1,27)
  gsub(  / /, "", col1 )
  print col1,
        substr("                           ", 1, 25-length(col1)),
        substr($0,28)
}

tayyabq8 · #3 (**permalink**) 01-26-2006

Quote:

Originally Posted by futurelet

Awk:

Code:

{ col1 = substr($0,1,27)
  gsub(  / /, "", col1 )
  print col1,
        substr("                           ", 1, 25-length(col1)),
        substr($0,28)
}

Thanks for your reply.
I'll check it when i'll be in office. Meanwhile would you pls. explain the code to me?

Regards,
Tayyab

futurelet · #4 (**permalink**) 01-26-2006

The block within { ... } is executed for every line of the file.
substr($0,1,27) extracts a substring of $0, the line just read, starting at character number 1 and continuing for 27 characters.
gsub( / /, "", col1 ) globally substitutes for each space in col1 the empty string; i.e., it removes all spaces.
When the resulting line is printed, we have to make sure that the data we changed is still 27 columns wide. Since each comma in the print statement provides 1 space, we subtract the size of col1 from 25 instead of from 27.

tayyabq8 · #5 (**permalink**) 01-28-2006

Code worked pefectly for me.
@futurelet Thanks for the code & its explanation.

Regards,
Tayyab

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