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Top Forums UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers Adding EMPTY columns to Tab-delimited txt file Post 302292185 by Banni on Friday 27th of February 2009 05:33:40 AM
Old 02-27-2009
Adding EMPTY columns to Tab-delimited txt file

Hi

I have a txt file with 4 columns where I need to add 4 empty columns in the middle meaning that I need what is currently column 4 to be column 8 in a new file.

The idea is that I have to use the file as input in a program that reads the data in column 1 and 8, so the content of the other columns doesn't matter.

I am a total newbie but have tried something like:

gawk '{print $1,"\t ","\t ","\t ","\t " , $2 , $3 , $4}' filename.txt > test

And this adds space between the original columns 1 and 2 but apparently this doesn't qualify as being columns but just "space".

I keep getting the following error when running my program(and there's nothing wrong with that command because it works with a file with the correct number of columns):

READING HLA POPULATION COVERAGE FILE:test
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/home/people/lunde/python/popcover6_HLAonly.py", line 349, in ?
HLAcoverindex, popcoverlist = readpop(open(opts.coveragefilename, 'r'))
File "/home/people/lunde/python/popcover6_HLAonly.py", line 105, in readpop
coverage = float(fields[7])
IndexError: list index out of range

Hope someone can help me out. Please!
 

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COLUMN(1)						    BSD General Commands Manual 						 COLUMN(1)

NAME
column -- columnate lists SYNOPSIS
column [-tx] [-c columns] [-s sep] [file ...] DESCRIPTION
The column utility formats its input into multiple columns. Rows are filled before columns. Input is taken from file operands, or, by default, from the standard input. Empty lines are ignored. The options are as follows: -c Output is formatted for a display columns wide. -s Specify a set of characters to be used to delimit columns for the -t option. -t Determine the number of columns the input contains and create a table. Columns are delimited with whitespace, by default, or with the characters supplied using the -s option. Useful for pretty-printing displays. -x Fill columns before filling rows. DIAGNOSTICS
The column utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs. ENVIRONMENT
COLUMNS The environment variable COLUMNS is used to determine the size of the screen if no other information is available. EXAMPLES
(printf "PERM LINKS OWNER GROUP SIZE MONTH DAY " ; printf "HH:MM/YEAR NAME " ; ls -l | sed 1d) | column -t SEE ALSO
colrm(1), ls(1), paste(1), sort(1) HISTORY
The column command appeared in 4.3BSD-Reno. BSD
June 6, 1993 BSD
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