How do I replace a string in file that is in a certain position with spaces? Post: 302969871

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Top Forums UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers How do I replace a string in file that is in a certain position with spaces? Post 302969871 by Scrutinizer on Tuesday 29th of March 2016 12:40:55 PM

03-29-2016

Moderator

Quote:

Originally Posted by RavinderSingh13

[..]Could you please try following and let me know if this helps you.

Code:

echo "512256734618F198451213732347011262015402 315138010001103001" | awk '{sub(substr($0,26,10)," ",$0);print}'

[..]

Quote:

Originally Posted by fnwine1500

I couldn't get either suggestion to work. But this seems to work

Code:

awk '{sub(substr($0,26,10),"          ",$0);print}' ORIGINAL_FILE.dat > NEWFILE.dat

Note that this will fail if the same sequence of 10 characters happens to occur somewhere before position 16.
To illustrate:

Code:

$ echo "5123470112620F198451213732347011262015402      315138010001103001" | awk '{sub(substr($0,26,10),"          ",$0);print}'
51          0F198451213732347011262015402      315138010001103001

So this is not a reliable solution.

Quote:

The " " actually has 10 spaces in between the quotes

And those 10 spaces will be shown, if you use code tags, like I inserted into your post..

----

Try:

Code:

awk '{s=substr($0,from,len); gsub(/./," ",s); print(substr($0,1,from-1) s substr($0,from+len))}' from=26 len=10 ORIGINAL_FILE.dat > NEWFILE.da

Last edited by Scrutinizer; 03-29-2016 at 03:23 PM..

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