Hey..

I'm writing a code to download some stuff from Informix database and put it on Xls. It works fine, but I have a problem fitting in a new requirement.

I have currently a file which has information like below.

f_name|Ronnie|Johnson|23.00|
f_sal|Ronnie|Jhonson|4000.00|
f_dept|Finance|Jr.Asst|23|

Now I need to insert a new column with a description corresponding to field name and that value needs to be inserted before it.

EmpName|f_name|Ronnie|Johnson|23.00|
EmpSalary|f_sal|Ronnie|Jhonson|4000.00|
EmpDept|f_dept|Finance|Jr.Asst|23|

I'm not sure of how to insert a value before a text moving the whole line to the right..

any thoughts please...

Try reeading the main page for join
IF you create a second file

EmpName|f_name
EmpSalary|f_sal
EmpDept|f_dept

Hey..

I tried the way u told me .. I'm on AIX actually..

In the first file there are multiple entries of the field name.. like

f_name|Ronnie|Johnson|23.00|
f_name|xxxx|yyyy|000|
f_name|ssss|dddd|123|
f_sal|Ronnie|Jhonson|4000.00|
f_sal|xxxx|yyyy|000|
f_sal|ssss|dddd|123|
f_dept|Finance|Jr.Asst|23|

I created a second file like

f_name|EmpName
f_sal|EmpSalary
f_dept|EmpDept

and did a simple join after sorting both the files..
join file1 file2 > file3.

nothing happened. No error popped up an nothing is happening.. is AIX a problem..
i tried using "join -i" option but that is not available in AIX i guess.
the number of rows in the two files are obviously not the same

is there anyother way out ??

Did you read the man page for join on AIX?

1. You have delimiters that normally interfere with commands like these so you have to use the -t parameter (e.g. -t\|)
2. You have to tell join what to join on (e.g. -1 1 -2 1)
3. Optionally, you may want to specify output (e.g. -o 1.2,2.3,2.4)

so, with this:

join -t\| -1 1 -2 1 -o 1.2,2.3,2.4 file2 file1

EmpName|Johnson|23.00
EmpName|yyyy|000
EmpName|dddd|123
EmpSalary|Jhonson|4000.00
EmpSalary|yyyy|000
EmpSalary|dddd|123

Works bud !!.. thanks much !