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Insert Commas at fixed positions

 
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# 1  
Old 01-27-2010
Insert Commas at fixed positions
Hi

I have a text file which is position delimited, i.e.

Code:
Code1  Description1        Value1
Code2  Description2        Value2 etc.

I want to import this file into MySQL so I want to convert the file into Comma delimited format.

To do this I want to insert commas at fixed positions on each line, eg Position 6 and 26 to give

Code:
Code1,  Description1        ,Value1
Code2,  Description2        ,Value2 etc.

I guess this must be possible with one of the Unix commands but don't know how ! Can anybody help with this ?

Thanks
Ross
# 2  
Old 01-27-2010
You can try this:

Code:
cat testfil2.txt | sed -e 's/Code[0-9]*/&,/g' | sed -e 's/Value[0-9]*/,&/g'

Last edited by Franklin52; 01-27-2010 at 08:46 AM.. Reason: Please use code tags!
# 3  
Old 01-27-2010
Thanks for the quick reply jostber and suggesting sed - however I think I did not make my problem clear enough - the lines of the textfile can contain any text, i.e.

Code:
H1234      Widget type A             12345
ZZ8888     Flanging Sprocket          999

and I need

Code:
H1234      ,Widget type A             ,12345
ZZ8888     ,Flanging Sprocket         ,999

I'll take a look at the docs for sed Smilie

Ross
# 4  
Old 01-27-2010
Quote:
Originally Posted by arossco
To do this I want to insert commas at fixed positions on each line, eg Position 6 and 26
Code:
LINE_OUT=${LINE_IN:0:5}","${LINE_IN:6:20}","${LINE_IN:27:$((${#LINE_IN}-26))}

Code:
Code1  Description1        Value1       # LINE_IN
Code1, Description1       ,Value1       # LINE_OUT

(Reference)
# 5  
Old 01-27-2010
cat testfil2.txt | awk '{print $1, ","$2, ","$3}'
# 6  
Old 01-27-2010
A couple of cheap ones...

Code:
awk '$1=$1",", $NF=","$NF'   # assumes only 3 fields
sed "s/[^ ]  /&,/g"          # assumes at least two spaces between each field

# 7  
Old 01-27-2010
Try something like this:
Code:
sed 's/\(.\{11\}\)\(.\{26\}\)/\1,\2,/'

or
Code:
sed -r 's/(.{11})(.{26})/\1,\2,/'

Last edited by Scrutinizer; 01-27-2010 at 11:05 AM..
 
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