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Full Discussion: Remove newline character from column spread over multiple lines in a file
Top Forums UNIX for Beginners Questions & Answers Remove newline character from column spread over multiple lines in a file Post 303038972 by Prathmesh on Wednesday 18th of September 2019 01:16:26 PM
Old 09-18-2019
Remove newline character from column spread over multiple lines in a file
Hi,

I came across one issue recently where output from one of the columns of the table from where i am creating input file has newline characters hence, record in the file is spread over multiple lines. Fields in the file are separated by pipe (|) delimiter. As header will never have newline character, I am trying to compare if other rows have same number of fields as that of header and if number of fields in particular row is less than number of fields in header line then I am removing newline character at the end of the line. I was able to do this for row spread over two lines but, I am not getting correct output for lines spread over multiple lines.

Below is test input file and expected output file -

Input file -
Code:
$ cat input
id|country|desscription|Language
1|UNITED STATES|WASHINGTON, D.C.|English
2|UNITED KINGDOM|Capital of UK is LONDON|English
3|NEPAL|Capital of NEPAL is
KATHMANDU|Nepali
4|QATAR|DOHA
is capital of
QATAR|Urdu
5|INDIA|capital
of
INDIA
is DELHI|Hindi
$

Expected output file -
Code:
id|country|desscription|Language
1|UNITED STATES|WASHINGTON, D.C.|English
2|UNITED KINGDOM|Capital of UK is LONDON|English
3|NEPAL|Capital of NEPAL is KATHMANDU|Nepali
4|QATAR|DOHA is capital of QATAR|Urdu
5|INDIA|capital of INDIA is DELHI|Hindi

Below code worked for row spread over two lines -
Code:
$ awk -F"|" '{if(NR==1){COL=NF}}{if(NF < COL){ sub(/\n/, ""); T=$0; getline; print T $0; next}}1' input
id|country|desscription|Language
1|UNITED STATES|WASHINGTON, D.C.|English
2|UNITED KINGDOM|Capital of UK is LONDON|English
3|NEPAL|Capital of NEPAL is KATHMANDU|Nepali
4|QATAR|DOHA is capital of
QATAR|Urdu5|INDIA|capital
of INDIA
is DELHI|Hindiis DELHI|Hindi
$

I also tried below code but it is not giving expected output -
Code:
 $ awk -F"|" '{if(NR==1){COL=NF}}{
> L_NF=NF
> C_NR=NR
> NL=$0
> CNT=0
> while(L_NF != COL)
> {
> C_NF=NF
> sub(/\n/, "");
> getline;
> NL=NL" "$0;
> CNT=+1
> L_NF=C_NF+NF
> }
> print NL
> }
> {
> for(i=0;i<=CNT;i++)
> {
> next
> }
> {
> print $0
> }}' input
id|country|desscription|Language
1|UNITED STATES|WASHINGTON, D.C.|English
2|UNITED KINGDOM|Capital of UK is LONDON|English
3|NEPAL|Capital of NEPAL is  KATHMANDU|Nepali 4|QATAR|DOHA  is capital of
QATAR|Urdu 5|INDIA|capital  of
INDIA  is DELHI|Hindi is DELHI|Hindi
$

Can someone please help me in this?
 

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LEARN ABOUT OSF1

mkmanifest

mkmanifest(1)						      General Commands Manual						     mkmanifest(1)

NAME

       mkmanifest - mtools utility to create a shell script to restore UNIX file names from DOS

SYNOPSIS

       mkmanifest [files]

OPTIONS

       None

OPERANDS

       A list of UNIX file names to be converted to DOS name format.

DESCRIPTION

       The  mkmanifest	command creates a shell script that aids in the restore of UNIX file names that were overwritten by DOS file name restric-
       tions.  DOS file names are uppercase only, cannot exceed 8 character names, 3 character extensions and do not support device names or  non-
       alphanumeric characters.

       Not all UNIX file names are supported in the DOS world.	The mtools commands may have to change UNIX names to fit the DOS file name conven-
       tions.  Most commands provide the verbose option (-v), that displays new file names if they have been changed. The  following  table  shows
       some examples of file name conversions:

       -----------------------------------------------
       UNIX name     DOS name	Reason for the change
       -----------------------------------------------
       thisisatest   THISISAT	file name too long
       file.stuff    FILE.STU	extension too long
       prn.txt	     XRN.TXT	PRN is a device name
       .abc	     X.ABC	null file name
       hot+cold      HOTXCOLD	illegal character
       -----------------------------------------------

EXIT STATUS

       The following exit values are returned: Success.  Failure.

EXAMPLES

       Assume you have the following UNIX files that you want to copy to a DOS diskette using the mcopy command.

       very_long_name 2.many.dots illegal: good.c prn.dev Capital

       The mcopy command converts these file names to the following:

       very_lon 2xmany.dot illegalx good.c xprn.dev capital

       To restore the previous file names, use the mkmanifest command as follows: mkmanifest very_long_name 2.many.dots illegal:       
				  good.c prn.dev Capital > manifest

       The  previous  mkmanifest command line produces the following: mv very_lon very_long_name mv 2xmany.dot 2.many.dots mv illegalx illegal: mv
       xprn.dev prn.dev mv capital Capital

       The good.c file name did not require conversion, hence it was not included in the output.

       If these files were copied from diskette to another UNIX system, and you wanted to restore the original names, retain a copy of	the  mani-
       fest file (captured output) so that it can be used to convert the file names again.

FILES

       Executable file

SEE ALSO

       Commands: mcopy(1), mtools(1)

																     mkmanifest(1)
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