help removing dashes from social security number

Marcia P · #1 (**permalink**) 02-28-2006

I have a file containing social security numbers with the format ###-##-####. I need to read each record in this file, reformat the SSN to the format #########, and write the record with the reformatted SSN to a new file. I am a UNIX newbie. I think I need to use either the sed or awk commands, but I haven't had any success with them yet.

Thanks
Marcia P

nuggetz · #2 (**permalink**) 02-28-2006

Do this:

echo 325-69-5555 | tr '-' ' ' | awk '{print $1$2$3}'

so if you had a file full of these you could also do:

cat fileWithSSN | tr '-' ' ' | awk '{print $1$2$3}'

Ygor · #3 (**permalink**) 02-28-2006

Some alternate methods...

Code:

$ echo 123-45-6789|sed 's/\(...\)-\(..\)-\(....\)/\1\2\3/'
123456789

$ echo 123-45-6789|awk -F - '{print $1 $2 $3}'
123456789

$ echo 123-45-6789|tr -d -
123456789

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