Hi

I have a txt file with 4 columns where I need to add 4 empty columns in the middle meaning that I need what is currently column 4 to be column 8 in a new file.

The idea is that I have to use the file as input in a program that reads the data in column 1 and 8, so the content of the other columns doesn't matter.

I am a total newbie but have tried something like:

gawk '{print $1,"\t ","\t ","\t ","\t " , $2 , $3 , $4}' filename.txt > test

And this adds space between the original columns 1 and 2 but apparently this doesn't qualify as being columns but just "space".

I keep getting the following error when running my program(and there's nothing wrong with that command because it works with a file with the correct number of columns):

READING HLA POPULATION COVERAGE FILE:test
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/home/people/lunde/python/popcover6_HLAonly.py", line 349, in ?
HLAcoverindex, popcoverlist = readpop(open(opts.coveragefilename, 'r'))
File "/home/people/lunde/python/popcover6_HLAonly.py", line 105, in readpop
coverage = float(fields[7])
IndexError: list index out of range

Hope someone can help me out. Please!