Shell Programming and Scripting

Hi,
We had an issue with one file. Each line in the file is a record in which there will be 6 fields each separated by ; Problem is some lines are broken into pieces.
like
a;b;
c;
d;
e;f
instead of a;b;c;d;e;f
I have filtered out all the broken lines from the original file and wrote to new file.
I need a logic to join these line when the filed count reach 6
I found one method like first joining all lines then breaking them when it reaches 6 fields. But the breaking portion is not working, Can any one please help
perl -0lne 's/\n//g file -- i used this one to oin all the lines...

Code:

perl -0777 -lpe 's/;\n/;/g;' INPUTFILE

Thanks
But this only deletes the ';'+ 'newlinecharecter', but not checking if it reach 7 field and break the line again..
i mean if the file is
1;2;3;4
5;
6;
7;
a;b;c
d;e;f;
g;
then the outpt should be
1;2;3;4;5;6;7;
a;b;c;d;e;f;g;

Why some your lines ends with ";", others not? Why in your first post the required output lines do not end with ";" and in your second they end?

Change all your newlines to ";", then change double ";;" to ";" , split the whole file on ";" and output records in a loop.

And give real examples if you want get a real help.

Not perl, but give this code a try:

Code:

{ sed 's/;/\n/g' | sed '/^$/d' | awk '{s=s$0";"}!(NR%7){print s;s=""}END{if(s)print s}';} < your_file

Code:

perl -F'[;\n]' -alne '
push @a, @F;
print join(";", splice @a, 0, 7), ";" if @a >=7;
END { print (join ";", splice @a, 0, 7), ";" if @a }
' INPUTFILE

Code:

awk -F\; '{for(i=0;++i<=NF;){if($i){$i=$i;if(c<=7){printf $i FS;c++};if(c==7){printf RS;c=x}}}}' file
1;2;3;4;5;6;7;
a;b;c;d;e;f;g;