Shell Programming and Scripting

Firstly i have used the perl command to modified the file.
And then the awk command

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cat file1.txt

field1 data "user1":
field2:"data-cde"
field3:"data-pqr"
field4:"data-mno"

field1 data "user1":
field2:"data-dcb"
field3:"data-mxz"
field4:"data-zul"

field1 data "user2":
field2:"data-cqz"
field3:"data-xoq"
field4:"data-pos"

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Used the perl command and modified the file1.txt data

perl -pi -e "s/field1 data /field1_data:g" file1.txt

so, now modified file1.txt

cat file1.txt
field1_data:"user1":
field2:"data-cde"
field3:"data-pqr"
field4:"data-mno"

field1_data:"user1":
field2:"data-dcb"
field3:"data-mxz"
field4:"data-zul"

field1_data:"user2":
field2:"data-cqz"
field3:"data-xoq"
field4:"data-pos"

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then use the awk script to get sorted info

cat file1.txt | Sort_a_File.awk > Sorted_Info.txt

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cat Sort_a_File.awk
set -x

function Extract_Arg(line) {
# -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
# Pull the argument after the equal sign
# -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
n = split(line, a, ":")
sub(/;$/, "", a[2])

return a[2]
}


# -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
# MAIN BODY
# -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
BEGIN {

tb = "\t" # handy tab

}


{
currentline = $0
# - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
# Check for each data value that we want to save
# - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
if (index(currentline, "field1_data:") > 0) {
col1 = Extract_Arg(currentline)
next
}

if (index(currentline, "field2:") > 0) {
col2 = Extract_Arg(currentline)
next
}

if (index(currentline, "field3:") > 0) {
col3 = Extract_Arg(currentline)
next
}

if (index(currentline, "field4:") > 0) {
col4 = Extract_Arg(currentline)
next
}

# - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
# Output the data line
# - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
if (index(currentline, "field4") == 0) {
print col1 " " col2 " " col3 " " col4 " "
}

}

field4 {
}

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cat Sorted_Info.txt

user1 data-cde data-pqr data-mno
user1 data-dcb data-mxz data-zul
user2 data-cqz data-xoq data-pos

above file does not contains the header...
you may append the header before sorting the data.

Hope this helps.

Regards
Chandrasekhar K