UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

I have one sample file that contains one question and multiple choice with answer. I need to print the question and answer in another file. Answer is printed next to one of the correct choice.

e.g.

1. Capital of USA
(A) USA
(B) Washington
(C) New York (B)
(D) New Delhi

so i want the output as
1. (B)

any help please.

Try...

Code:

awk '{if($1 ~ "^[1-9]".*)printf("%d ",$1);if($NF ~ "\\([A-D]\\)")printf("%s",$NF"\n")}' infile

I am getting this error message

Code:

$ awk '{if($1 ~ "^[1-9]".*)printf("%d ",$1); if($NF ~ "\\([A-D]\\)") printf("%s",$NF"\n")}' abc.txt
 syntax error The source line is 1.
 The error context is
                {if($1 ~ >>>  "^[1-9]". <<< *)printf("%d ",$1); if($NF ~ "\\([A-D]\\)") printf("%s",$NF"\n")}
 awk: The statement cannot be correctly parsed.
 The source line is 1.

content of file is like ...

1. A M-^Scalendar stickM-^T carved centuries ago by the Winnebago tribe may provide the first evidence that the North American Indians have developed advance
d full-year calendars basing them on systematic astronomical observation.
(A) that the North American Indians have developed advanced full-year calendars basing them
(B) of the North American Indians who have developed advanced full-year calendars and based them
(C) of the development of advanced full-year calendars by North American Indians, basing them
(D) of the North American Indians and their development of advanced full-year calendars based(E)
(E) that the North American Indians developed advanced full-year calendars based
2. A 1972 agreement between Canada and the United States reduced the amount of phosphates that municipalities had been allowed to dump into the Great Lakes.
(A) reduced the amount of phosphates that municipalities had been allowed to dump
(B) reduced the phosphate amount that municipalities had been dumping
(C) reduces the phosphate amount municipalities have been allowed to dump
(D) reduced the amount of phosphates that municipalities are allowed to dump(A)
(E) reduces the amount of phosphates allowed for dumping by municipalities

Code:

awk '{if($1 ~ "^[1-9]".*)printf("%d ",$1); if($NF ~ "\\([A-D]\\)") printf("%s",$NF"\n")}' abc.txt

Put the entire regular expression within the quotes:

Code:

if($1 ~ "^[1-9].*".*)

Also, it would be more readable and probably make the program run slightly faster if you use "/" instead of quotes to delimit regular expressions that are constant. Then you don't have to escape the "\" because the expression is not scanned twice:

Code:

awk '{if($1 ~ /^[1-9].*/)printf("%d ",$1); if($NF ~ /\([A-D]\)/) printf("%s",$NF"\n")}' abc.txt

Sorry, I posted this incomplete. So I removed it.