Insert space or pattern between columns in a data file Post: 302814007

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Top Forums Shell Programming and Scripting Insert space or pattern between columns in a data file Post 302814007 by hbar on Tuesday 28th of May 2013 02:21:08 PM

05-28-2013

Registered User

Quote:

Originally Posted by MadeInGermany

Why did my previous post not meet your requirement?
The $ *$ matched the extra space characters and \1 inserted them back.
$ *$ matches all the space characters i.e. the entire space.
The /2 addresses the 2. space while the /1 addresses the 1. space.
Two more examples:

Code:

sed '
s/\(  *\)/:\1/2
s/\(  *\)/,\1/1
' f1

Code:

sed '
s/\(  *\)/  \1/2
s/\(  *\)/  \1/1
' f1

The colon and comma sit just after column 2 and column 1. Can I place them in the middle of the spaces?

For example, if I have 4 spaces, a comma will sit on the 3rd space and there will be a gap of 5 spaces between the columns (including the comma in the middle).

For odd number of spaces, we can make a choice, such as make even by adding an extra space and then put the comma in the middle.

We can exploit this idea to generate a table while I'll be inserting '|' in the middle of two columns.

I was expecting some 'awk' commands, but don't know whether that could be possible.

Thanks anyway.

hbar

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colrm

COLRM(1)						    BSD General Commands Manual 						  COLRM(1)

NAME

     colrm -- remove columns from a file

SYNOPSIS

     colrm [start [stop]]

DESCRIPTION

     The colrm utility removes selected columns from the lines of a file.  A column is defined as a single character in a line.  Input is read
     from the standard input.  Output is written to the standard output.

     If only the start column is specified, columns numbered less than the start column will be written.  If both start and stop columns are spec-
     ified, columns numbered less than the start column or greater than the stop column will be written.  Column numbering starts with one, not
     zero.

     Tab characters increment the column count to the next multiple of eight.  Backspace characters decrement the column count by one.

ENVIRONMENT

     The LANG, LC_ALL and LC_CTYPE environment variables affect the execution of colrm as described in environ(7).

EXIT STATUS

     The colrm utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.

SEE ALSO

     awk(1), column(1), cut(1), paste(1)

HISTORY

     The colrm command appeared in 3.0BSD.

BSD
								  August 4, 2004							       BSD