Shell Programming and Scripting

Hi Guys,

I have data in a file as follows:

Code:

 
a 1 2 3
b 4 5 6 
 
 
a 6 7 8 
 
 
a 4 7 9 
b 6 8 5 
c 0 8 7

So the number of rows which have data is variable (2 for the first group, one for the second group and three for the third group), but the delimiters between the groups is always two newlines.

I want something like this:

Code:

a b c 
1 4 0
6 6
4

I tried the following transpose with awk and it is giving me:

Code:

 
a 1 2 3         b 4 5 6          a 6 7 8     a 4 7 9           b 6 8 5         c 0 8 7

There are tabs between different groups. Here is the awk statement I am using:

Code:

 
$ awk ' BEGIN {FS="\n\n"} { for (i=1;i<=NF;i++) { arr[NR,i]=$i; if(nf<= NF) nf=NF; } nr=NR } END { for(i=1;i<=nf;i++) { for(j=1;j<=nr;j++) { printf("%s\t",arr[j,i]); } printf("\n"); } }' try.txt > try1.txt

Any ideas what may be wrong?

Thanks.