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Help changing date output with AWK

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# 1  
Old 03-25-2010
Help changing date output with AWK
Hello all,
I have an issue where I'm trying to change a date in a csv text file. The file contains lines that have several fields. For example

Code:
"John", "Smith","some_address","some_city","555-555-5555","11/11/1972"
"Joan","User","some_address","some_city","444-444-4444","12/02/1963"

The date is separated by the "/" and is the date is the last field in the record, Field 12. What I would like to do is run AWK against the file and change the date from
dd/mm/yyyy to YYYYMMDD and have it stay in the same field on all records, so the output will look like this
Code:
"John","Smith","some_address","some_city","555-555-5555","YYYYMMDD"
"Joan","User","some_address","some_city","444-444-4444","YYYYMMDD"

I tried:
Code:
$ awk -F "/" '{print $3, $2, $1}'

but that returns the records in the format
Code:
YYYYMM,"John","Smith"......

Any one out there know how to solve this? Thanks in advance

Any ideas on how to accomplish this?
Last edited by Franklin52; 03-26-2010 at 04:14 AM.. Reason: Please use code tags!
# 2  
Old 03-25-2010
Code:
sed 's/"\(..\)\/\(..\)\/\(....\)"/"\3\2\1"/' file

# 3  
Old 03-25-2010
its long solution but jsut gives an idea how to do it with AWK:

Code:
awk -F\, '{split($NF,a,"[/\"]");{$NF="\""a[4]a[3]a[2]"\""}}1' OFS=\, FILE

# 4  
Old 03-25-2010
Thanks, but that didn't seem to do it. The date remained the same
# 5  
Old 03-25-2010
Quote:
Originally Posted by commobox
Thanks, but that didn't seem to do it. The date remained the same
If you are using Solaris then use "nawk or /usr/xpg4/bin/awk" instead of awk:

Code:
nawk -F\, '{split($NF,a,"[/\"]");{$NF="\""a[4]a[3]a[2]"\""}}1' OFS=\, FILE

and SED will only change standard output that is screen so u should redirect the SED solution to another file:

Code:
sed 's/"\(..\)\/\(..\)\/\(....\)"/"\3\2\1"/' file > myfile.csv

# 6  
Old 03-25-2010
Code:
awk -F\" '{split($(NF-1),a,"\/");sub($(NF-1),a[3]a[2]a[1])}1'  infile

# 7  
Old 03-25-2010
Quote:
Originally Posted by danmero
Code:
awk -F\" '{split($(NF-1),a,"\/");sub($(NF-1),a[3]a[2]a[1])}1'  infile

Why your code doesn't need OFS=\" ?

Code:
awk -F\" '{split($(NF-1),a,"/");$(NF-1)=a[3]a[2]a[1]}1' OFS=\" urfile

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