Hello, jaygimini:

No offense, but you were a bit lazy with your help request. There are five lines of sample input and not a single complete example of desired output. It would have been much better if you had, for each input sample, provided the corresponding sample output exactly as it is desired. At least, I, personally, think it would have been very helpful. (For example, I'm not sure if the "-" in the output is desired in the actual output or if you merely used it in the example to make it more readable.)

For the first part of the problem, you state that you only want the data in the exclamation point-delimited field when it follows a word of the form x.x.x.x? Are fields 1 and 2 an exception to that rule, because 4 and 101 are not preceded by an x.x.x.x word?

Unlike your first line of sample data, the four lines at the end of your post have an additional exclamation point-delimited field. Should it be treated like the first part of the line, if it begins with a x.x.x.x word, include it in the output?

Any other special cases that may have been overlooked?

Regards,
Alister

---------- Post updated at 06:27 PM ---------- Previous update was at 05:18 PM ----------

In case it's of any help:

Code:

sed 's/! TICKET NBR : //; s/! GSI : //; s/! \([0-9]\{1,\}\.\)\{3\}[0-9]\{1,\} *\([^!]*\)/\2/g;
s/ *!\( *[^ ]*\)\{0,2\}//g; s/<\([^>]*\)>\([^<]*\)<\/\1> */\2 /g' data

This solution assumes that every exclamation point that appears in the line serves as a delimiter.

Test run on a data file which consists of 5 lines, the same 5 lines you provided in your original post, in the same order as they occurred in your post (the one line near the beginning of it and the four at the end). I originally included the contents of the data file, but they broke the forum layout at my current display resolution. Speaking of being lazy, I suppose I could've attached it

Code:

4 101 04/03/2010 12:33:33 acc_22640827031004 CYCL_ST 2898381018 00092898381018 Mobility 10.00 0.50  Inactive     10.00 0.50 302612898381018 
1 101 04/03/2010 14:08:24 acc_22640827031004 CYCL_ST 2898381018 00092898381018 Mobility 10.00 0.50  Active     10.00 0.50 302612898381018 4
2 101 04/03/2010 15:59:59 acc_1234567890 CYCL_ST 7805250631 007805250631 Mobility 0.00 0.00  Active     0.00 0.00 000007805250631 4
3 101 04/03/2010 15:26:22 acc_1234567890 CYCL_ST 7805250631 007805250631 Mobility -10.00 0.00  Inactive     -10.00 0.00 000007805250631 4
4 101 04/03/2010 12:33:33 acc_22640827031004 CYCL_ST 2898381018 00092898381018 Mobility 10.00 0.50  Inactive     10.00 0.50 302612898381018 4

Alister