Aligning text files by max field length Post: 302546514

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Top Forums Shell Programming and Scripting Aligning text files by max field length Post 302546514 by physalis2099 on Thursday 11th of August 2011 10:55:33 AM

08-11-2011

Registered User

Aligning text files by max field length

Hello,
Is there anyway that I can align a pipe delimited text file by the maxium field length where the field is separated out by pipes for large text files with more than
100,000 rows?

So, far I have searched other forums and google about aligning text files in unix and I have noticed that several other users use the awk utility. Since I am new to awk
I have attempted in writing my own code after reading some of the awk utility syntax, but I am getting stuck.
If awk is not the best utility to achieve this is there any way to code this???

My test code:

#!/bin/ksh
awk 'BEGIN {FS = "|"}
{
for(i=1;i<=NF;i++)
{
if (length($i) > max)
max = length($i)
maxlen($i) = max
}
}
END
{
for (i in max) print (i,max)
}
' $(find . -name "testfile.txt")

Below is a sample of the text file that I have:

Pipe Delimited Text file
YEAR|NAME|PRODUCT_ID|ORDER_ID|CUSTOMER_ID
2001|Unix book|12354|01587|5487651484
2002|Programming|65487|6564548|654365146
2003|Airsoft Guns|6544888|548|65498
2004|Video Games|101100018|44|648
2010|Wayside Stories from wayside school|5487454|4|64645646
.
.
.

Desired Output:

YEAR|NAME |PRODUCT_ID|ORDER_ID|CUSTOMER_ID
2001 |Unix book |12354 |01587 |5487651484
2002 |Programming |65487 |6564548 |654365146
2003 |Airsoft Guns |6544888 |548 |65498
2004 |Video Games |101100018 |44 |648
2010 |Wayside Stories from wayside school|5487454 |4 |64645646
.
.
.

Thanks,

Desired Output.txt (626 Bytes)

physalis2099

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LEARN ABOUT DEBIAN

dpkg-awk

DPKG-AWK(1)						      General Commands Manual						       DPKG-AWK(1)

NAME

       dpkg-awk - Utility to read a dpkg style db file

SYNOPSIS

       dpkg-awk [(-f|--file) filename] [(-d|--debug) ##] [(-s|--sort) list] [(-rs|--rec_sep) ??] '<fieldname>:<regex>' ... -- <out_fieldname> ..

DESCRIPTION

       dpkg-awk  Parses  a  dpkg status file (or other similarly formatted file) and outputs the resulting records.  It can use regex on the field
       values to limit the returned records, it can also be told which fields to output, and it can sort the matched fields.

OPTIONS

       -f filename
       --file filename
	      The file to parse.  The default is /var/lib/dpkg/status.

       -d [#]
       --debug [#]
	      Each time this is specified, it increased the debug level.

       -s field(s)
       --sort field(s)
	      A space or comma separated list of fields to sort on.

       -n field(s)
       --numeric field(s)
	      A space or comma separated list of fields that should be interpreted as numeric in value.

       -rs ??
       --rec_sep ??
	      Output this string at the end of each output paragraph.

       -h
       --help Display some help.

       fieldname
	      The fields from the file, that are matched with the regex given.	The fieldnames are case insensitive.

       out_fieldname
	      The fields from the file, that are output for each record.  If the first field listed begins with ^, then the list  of  fields  that
	      follows will NOT be output.

BUGS

       Be  warned  that  the author has only a shallow understanding of the dpkg packaging system, so there are probably tons of bugs in this pro-
       gram.

       This program comes with no warranties.  If running this program causes fire and brimstone to rain down upon the earth, you will be on  your
       own.

       This program accesses the dpkg database directly in places, querying for data that cannot be gotten via dpkg.

AUTHOR

       Adam Heath <doogie@debian.org>

DEBIAN
								 Debian Utilities						       DPKG-AWK(1)

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