Hi,

I am processing a file and would like to delete duplicate records as indicated by one of its column. e.g.

COL1 COL2 COL3
A 1234 1234
B 3k32 2322
C Xk32 TTT
A NEW XX22
B 3k32 2322


I want the file not to contain duplicate COL1. i.e. the file should only contain the ff:

COL1 COL2 COL3
A 1234 1234
B 3k32 2322
C Xk32 TTT


The records with duplicate COL1 were deleted.

Anybody who has suggestions on how to do this?

Thank you.

Thanks for the reply Jim. But when I tried the script, it returned "event not found error". any idea what's causing this error? also, i forgot to include in my sample, that the file i want to process is comma delimited. thank you.

COL1, COL2, COL3
A, 1234, 1234
B, 3k32, 2322
C, Xk32, TTT
A, NEW, XX22
B, 3k32, 2322

Look at the change above - also try gawk or nawk especailly if you are on a solaris box.
The statement is okay for a modern awk.

It's your shell ((t)csh I suppose).
Try using a script:

Thanks again Jim, but I still get the "arr[: event not found error". I also noticed that when I recall the command (by pressing up arrow key), the part "![arr", is removed from the script. ie. the script becomes

awk -F, '$1]++' oldfile > newfile

im running on a solaris, and have also tried gawk and nawk, but the same error is being returned.

thank you.

Thanks radolouv. But how do I use this?
$ cat uniq.awk
!arr[$1]++
$ awk -f uniq.awk file


what is uniq.awk file?