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cutting columns if delimiter has more than one charecter

 
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# 1  
Old 09-12-2006
cutting columns if delimiter has more than one charecter
Hi,

My file looks like

abc$%sdfhs$%sdf$%sdfaf$%

here as seen delimiter is $%...now how cas i take out second field as cut command expect delimiter as single charecter only.....is there is any other way

thanks and regards
mahabunta
# 2  
Old 09-12-2006
Code:
echo "abc$%sdfhs$%sdf$%sdfaf$%" | tr -s '$%' '  ' | cut -d" " -f3

I think you can not use two char as delimiter in cut. What you can do is translate that two char to single char and then cut it
# 3  
Old 09-12-2006
thanks for reply.....

but is there is any other wat wirhout using tr command.......may be in AWk or any other method...
# 4  
Old 09-12-2006
hi,

I guess it can be done using awk scripting....

say my file is delimited by ~%%~ and i need 6th field then following command will give me correct result.......

cat file | awk -F "~%%~" '{print $6}'

sandy
# 5  
Old 09-12-2006
Hmm, that didn't work in my test. Passing more than one character to -F just returned the entire line as argument $1.

Code:
awk -F"\$%" '{print $1}' file

abc$%sdfhs$%sdf$%sdfaf$%
abc$%sdfhs$%sdf$%sdfaf$%
abc$%sdfhs$%sdf$%sdfaf$%
abc$%sdfhs$%sdf$%sdfaf$%
abc$%sdfhs$%sdf$%sdfaf$%
abc$%sdfhs$%sdf$%sdfaf$%
abc$%sdfhs$%sdf$%sdfaf$%

You could use sed to change it:

Code:
sed -e "s/\$%/:/g" file | cut -f3 -d:

sdf
sdf
sdf
sdf
sdf
sdf

Or use tr as noted earlier:

Code:
cat files | tr -s "$%" ":" | cut -f3 -d:

sdf
sdf
sdf
sdf
sdf
sdf

It appears the $% is causing issues with the -F command. If I replace the $% with ", ", I can run

Code:
awk -F", " '{print $2}' files2

sdfhs
sdfhs
sdfhs
sdfhs
sdfhs
sdfhs

And it works. I also tried the $% delimiter in an awk script and it didn't work either. I tried escaping one and both characters without success.

Carl
# 6  
Old 09-12-2006
Escape the backslash, like this...
Code:
$ awk -F '\\$%' '{print $1}' file
abc
abc
abc

# 7  
Old 09-12-2006
Quote:
Originally Posted by mahabunta
Hi,

My file looks like

abc$%sdfhs$%sdf$%sdfaf$%

here as seen delimiter is $%...now how cas i take out second field as cut command expect delimiter as single charecter only.....is there is any other way

thanks and regards
mahabunta
Just an alternative, in Python:
Code:
>>> line = "abc$%sdfhs$%sdf$%sdfaf$%"
>>> secondfield = line.split("$%")[1] #element 1 is second field
>>> print secondfield
sdfhs

 
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