appending spaces to first line based on second record.

ammu · #1 (**permalink**) 11-14-2007

Hi,

I have a situation to append spaces to end of first record (header)and last record (footer) based on second record length.

The first record length is always 20.The second record will be different for different files.I have to append spaces for the first line based on second record length.The length of second record is also known.

Similarly for last record.Its length is also 25.i have to append spaces based on second record.The file is fixed width file.So that the record length will be same through out the file.

I have to do this for several files...

Please advice.

Franklin52 · #2 (**permalink**) 11-14-2007

Try this:

Code:

#!/bin/sh

nl=`wc -l $1|cut -d" " -f1`

awk '
{
  if (NR==1) {
    len=length($0)
    r=$0
    next
  }
  if (NR==2) {
    len2=length($0)
    printf("%s",r)
    for(i=1;i<=len2-len;i++) {
      printf(" ")
    }
    printf("\n")
  }
  if (NR=='$nl') {
    len=length($0)
    printf("%s",$0)
    for(i=1;i<=len2-len;i++) {
      printf(" ")
    }
    printf("\n")
  }
  else
  {
    print
  }
} ' $1

Usage: scriptname your_file

Regards

summer_cherry · #3 (**permalink**) 11-16-2007

Hi guy,

Actually, this code is not totally right on your target. But i hope it will help you. My logic is:

No matter how length should be each line, the result will be the longest line. It means every line will be set to the certain length of the longest line of the file.

input:

Code:

a
b         b
c    e
dd
e a fd
dd

output:

Code:

a              *
b         b   *
c    e        *
dd            *
e a fd       *
dd            *

code:

Code:

awk '{
if (length($0)>=n)
n=length($0)
line[NR]=$0
}
END{
for (i=1;i<=NR;i++)
printf("%-"n"s*\n",line[i])
}' a

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