Help with sed replacement


 
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# 1  
Old 10-05-2010
Help with sed replacement

This seems like it should be an easy problem, but I'm a noob and I can't figure it out. I'm trying to use sed, but would be happy to use anything that does the job.

I am trying to trim off a fixed number of unknown characters from 2 different : delimited fields while keeping the intervening characters. This is what they look like:

Field1:Field2:Field3:Field4:Field5:Field6[80 A-Z characters]:Field7[80 ASCII characters]

Fields 1-5 also contain A-Z characters. I am trying to trim the first 20 characters from fields 6 and 7, while keeping everything else, and keeping them in this format. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
# 2  
Old 10-05-2010
Try this:
Code:
awk -F: '{ printf("%s %s %s %s %s %s %s\n",$1,$2,$3,$4,$5,substr($6,20),substr($7,20)) } ' file

HTH
This User Gave Thanks to bluescreen For This Post:
# 3  
Old 10-05-2010
Code:
awk -F: '{$6=substr($6,1,20);$7=substr($7,1,20)}1' OFS=":" file

# 4  
Old 10-05-2010
thanks bluescreen, that did the trick. I just had to add back the : in place of the spaces, but no problem. I think I even understand how that worksSmilie.
# 5  
Old 10-05-2010
Yes, sed is a bit weak on delimited fields compared to awk or PERL.
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