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Need an awk for a global find/replace in a file, specific column

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# 1  
Old 03-22-2010
Need an awk for a global find/replace in a file, specific column
I am new to unix and awk/sed etc... using C-Shell.

Basically, I have a fixed length file that has 4 different record types on it, H, D, V, W all in column 1. I need to change all the W's in column 1 to D's. in the entire file. The W's can be anywhere in the file and must remain in the same location as before.

Input File
Code:
H1111111111111
D1111111111111
D1111111111111
H2222222222222
D2222222222222
V3333333333333
W3333333333333
W3333333333333
V4444444444444
W4444444444444

The output file should look like the following:

Output File
Code:
H1111111111111
D1111111111111
D1111111111111
H2222222222222
D2222222222222
V3333333333333
D3333333333333
D3333333333333
V4444444444444
D4444444444444

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks.
Last edited by pludi; 03-22-2010 at 10:22 AM.. Reason: code tags, please...
# 2  
Old 03-22-2010
Code:
 sed 's/^W/D/' file

# 3  
Old 03-22-2010
Using awk:

awk '{if (substr($0,1,1) == "W") {print "D"substr($0,2)} else {print substr($0,1)}}' file
# 4  
Old 03-22-2010
Code:
awk ' { sub("^W","D") } 1 ' file

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