Login or Register to Ask a Question and Join Our Community


Shell Programming and Scripting

edit entire column from a fixed-width file using awk or sed

Login to Discuss or Reply to this Discussion in Our Community

 
Thread Tools Search this Thread
Top Forums Shell Programming and Scripting edit entire column from a fixed-width file using awk or sed
# 1  
Old 03-31-2009
edit entire column from a fixed-width file using awk or sed
Col1 Col2 Col3 Col4

Code:
12     Completed        08       0830
12     In Progress       09       0829
11     For F U            07       0828

Considering the file above, how could i replace the third column the most efficient way? The actual file size is almost 1G. I am having problems with awk since there are spaces between Col 2 and awk is treatng the next word as another column.

Please help!!!
Last edited by Yogesh Sawant; 03-31-2009 at 04:47 AM.. Reason: added code tags
# 2  
Old 03-31-2009
sed is usually faster than awk
# 3  
Old 03-31-2009
Thanks for the reply but I dont know the specific command that will work in this scenario. Would you know how to do that?
# 4  
Old 03-31-2009
An example with awk to replace the 3th column with 01:

Code:
awk -v var="01" '{$(NF-1) = var}1' file

Regards
# 5  
Old 03-31-2009
Thank you for that but what if the 4th column are strings with spaces in between? Is there a way to dictate awk to start looking at a certain point like looking at every 200th character of each line?
# 6  
Old 03-31-2009
Hi,

In that case its better to use sed ..
Code:
eg:
sed 's/./&replace/200' filename

above command will start replace from 200th character...from the inputfile.

Thanks
SHa
# 7  
Old 03-31-2009
Thanks that's helpful, just wondering if i need to replace only the 200th-220th character of each line, what would the command look like?
Login or Register to Ask a Question

Previous Thread | Next Thread

9 More Discussions You Might Find Interesting

1. Shell Programming and Scripting

Print column details from fixed width file using awk command

hi, i have a fixed width file with multiple columns and need to print data using awk command. i use: awk -F "|" '($5 == BH) {print $1,$2,$3}' <non_AIM target>.txt for a delimiter file. but now i have a fixed width file like below: 7518 8269511BH 20141224951050N8262 11148 8269511BH... (5 Replies)
Discussion started by: kcdg859
5 Replies

2. Shell Programming and Scripting

To replace the value of the column in a fixed width file

I have a fixed with file with header & trailer length having the same length of the detail record file. The details record length of this file is 24, for Header and Trailer the records will be padded with spaces to match the record length of the file Currently I am adding 3 spaces in header... (14 Replies)
Discussion started by: ginrkf
14 Replies

3. Shell Programming and Scripting

How to split a fixed width text file into several ones based on a column value?

Hi, I have a fixed width text file without any header row. One of the columns contains a date in YYYYMMDD format. If the original file contains 3 dates, I want my shell script to split the file into 3 small files with data for each date. I am a newbie and need help doing this. (14 Replies)
Discussion started by: bhanja_trinanja
14 Replies

4. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Remove duplicates based on a column in fixed width file

Hi, How to output the duplicate record to another file. We say the record is duplicate based on a column whose position is from 2 and its length is 11 characters. The file is a fixed width file. ex of Record: DTYU12333567opert tjhi kkklTRG9012 The data in bold is the key on which... (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: Qwerty123
1 Replies

5. Shell Programming and Scripting

Appending string (charachters inside the line) to a fixed width file using awk or sed

Source File: abcdefghijklmnop01qrstuvwxyz abcdefghijklmnop02qrstuvwxyz abcdefghijklmnop03qrstuvwxyz abcdefghijklmnop04qrstuvwxyz abcdefghijklmnop05qrstuvwxyz Whatever characters are in 17-18 on each line of the file, it should be concatenated to the same line at the character number... (6 Replies)
Discussion started by: tamahomekarasu
6 Replies

6. Shell Programming and Scripting

Fixed Width Join & Pad Sed/Awk Help

I was wondering someone might be able to push me in the right direction, I am writing a script to modify fixed-width spool files, As you can see below the original spool file broke a single line into two for printability sake. I have had been able do the joins using sed, the thing I am... (10 Replies)
Discussion started by: Cho Nagurai
10 Replies

7. Shell Programming and Scripting

Changing one column of delimited file column to fixed width column

Hi, Iam new to unix. I have one input file . Input file : ID1~Name1~Place1 ID2~Name2~Place2 ID3~Name3~Place3 I need output such that only first column should change to fixed width column of 15 characters of length. Output File: ID1<<12 spaces>>Name1~Place1 ID2<<12... (5 Replies)
Discussion started by: manneni prakash
5 Replies

8. Shell Programming and Scripting

Comparing column of variable length anf fixed width file

Hi, I have two input files. File1: ID Name Place 1-234~name1~Newyork 1-34~name2~Boston 1-2345~name3~Hungary File1 is a variable length file where each column is seperated by delimitter "~". File2: ID Country 1-34<<11 SPACES>>USA<<7 spaces>> 1-234<<10 SPACES>>UK<<8... (5 Replies)
Discussion started by: manneni prakash
5 Replies

9. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Fixed Width file using AWK

I am using the following command at the Unix prompt to make my 'infile' into a fixed width file of 100 characters. awk '{printf "%-100s\n",$0}' infile > outfile However, there are some records with a special character "©" These records are using 3 characters in place of one and my record... (2 Replies)
Discussion started by: alok.benjwal
2 Replies
Login or Register to Ask a Question