I have a variable length file that needs to be reformatted to 80 byte reclen before I ftp it to a customer. What is the best way to do this? I tried using dd if=inputfile of=outputfile conv=noblock cbs=80, and it almost gives me what I need. The output file needs to be 80-byte records, and the last record needs to be padded to 80 bytes. I can't get the last record padding with dd. BTW, I'm on AIX 5.2.

Can I use an AWK for this?

It should be conv=block so try that. It's incredible that conv=unblock was close.

You could try something like:

The "\r" and "\n" terminate each record (line) with carriage-return and linefeed. If you only need linefeeds, just omit the "\r". This won't work if you have tabs in the file, however.

Edit: This is for HP-UX.

Edit2: This also assumes that your record lengths are currently less than or equal to 80. That awk command won't help if you have record lengths greater than 80 -- if you do, they would need to be truncated or folded first.

I have a unix file that needs to be formatted to an 80-byte file. We have an HP-UX system, so I think the last Awk example will work. Since my file is greater than 80-bytes in length, can someone explain how to "fold" the file?

Thank you!

Melissa