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Replacing junk characters

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# 1  
Old 07-12-2010
Replacing junk characters
Hi,

I have a file with data as given below
Code:
$cat file1
123|abc|345
345|def|567

The first record is good record. The second record has an invisible junk character like \032.

I was replace all the occurences of that invisible character with #.
I want to do this for a set of invisible characters in a particular field of a file.
How can i do this.
# 2  
Old 07-12-2010
First confirm the character's octal code with this "sed" enquiry.

Code:
sed -n l file1


If the character turned out to be carriage-return (octal 015).

Code:
ROGUE=`echo "\0015"`
ukh44004 # sed -e "s/${ROGUE}/#/g" file1 > file2

# 3  
Old 07-12-2010
This translates all control characters except '\n' to #.
Code:
cat file1 | tr '[\000-\011\013-\037]' '#'

This deletes them.
Code:
cat file1 | tr -d '[\000-\011\013-\037]'

# 4  
Old 07-12-2010
@ Jackson

Thanks for that!!

Is it possible for me to extend it to do it for a pipe delimited file.
For Ex: the file is as given below
Code:
$cat file 1
123|USA|abc|454
567|Canada|def|456

In field 2 if there is either '\032 or '\015' then i have to delete them.
In field 3 if there is either '\032 or '\015' then i have to replace with #.

There is a file with 100 columns where some columns need to check for specific characters and they have to be either deleted or removed.Can this be done using awk if i know the fields.

---------- Post updated at 06:27 AM ---------- Previous update was at 06:15 AM ----------

Jackson,
There is some problem with that command. I tested on this data.
Code:
$ cat -v -e -t junk1.txt
123|john|ziet^Z|234$
345|goodyahoo.com|boy|765$
345|abcgood@yahoo.com|765$
345|#$%abc@yahoo.com|987$
dskajfk^Zjdfaks$
jhdfasjfh$

Executed the command
Code:
 cat junk1.txt | tr '[\000-\011\013-\037]' '#' > test1

The output in test1 is
Code:
$ cat -v -e -t test1
123|john|ziet^Z|234$
345|goodyahoo.com|boy|765$
345|abcgood@yahoo.com|765$
345|#$%abc@yahoo.com|987$
dskajfk^Zjdfaks$
jhdfasjfh$

The ^Z characters are still present

The octal output is given below
Code:
$ od -c junk1.txt
0000000   1   2   3   |   j   o   h   n   |   z   i   e   t 032   |   2
0000020   3   4  \n   3   4   5   |   g   o   o   d   y   a   h   o   o
0000040   .   c   o   m   |   b   o   y   |   7   6   5  \n   3   4   5
0000060   |   a   b   c   g   o   o   d   @   y   a   h   o   o   .   c
0000100   o   m   |   7   6   5  \n   3   4   5   |   #   $   %   a   b
0000120   c   @   y   a   h   o   o   .   c   o   m   |   9   8   7  \n
0000140   d   s   k   a   j   f   k 032   j   d   f   a   k   s  \n   j
0000160   h   d   f   a   s   j   f   h  \n
0000171

# 5  
Old 07-12-2010
This is most curious.

I reproduced your junk1.txt file so that it produces the same output with od. But tr works for me as expected.

It's very easy to get files swapped in little tests like this. Are you sure you are redirecting and dumping the correct files?
# 6  
Old 07-12-2010
The problem with the "tr" approach is that there must be a matching entry on both sides of the translate.

This should work for the two characters concerned.

Code:
cat junk1.txt | tr '\032\015' '##' > test1


With my unix "tr", it would I think need 31 '#" characters to match the ranges in KenJackson's post (untested). Hope this helps.
# 7  
Old 07-12-2010
Quote:
Originally Posted by ashwin3086
Is it possible for me to extend it to do it for a pipe delimited file.
For Ex: the file is as given below
Code:
$cat file 1
123|USA|abc|454
567|Canada|def|456

In field 2 if there is either '\032 or '\015' then i have to delete them.
In field 3 if there is either '\032 or '\015' then i have to replace with #.

There is a file with 100 columns where some columns need to check for specific characters and they have to be either deleted or removed.Can this be done using awk if i know the fields.
Code:
awk 'BEGIN{FS=OFS="|"} {gsub(/[^M^Z]/,"",$2); gsub(/[^M^Z]/,"#",$3); print}' junk > nojunk

Note: In my code, "^M^Z" was entered by typing control-v control-m control-v control-z.

Regards,
Alister
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