Shell Programming and Scripting

Hello,

I have a text file with the following fields:

Code:

RecordNumber
Name
Email
Date
Notes
Confirmed
MailingList

The problem is that each field is on a separate line. These seven fields repeat for the length of the file. What I want to do is to have a bash script or similar unitil EOF read each of the above 7 lines into a variable and then write out each variable to another file delimited by a ";".

Example:

Code:

1
John Smith
john@mymail.com
2012-07-07 10:00:00
No notes
Yes
Testlist
2
Jane Brady
jane@bradynetworks.com
2012-04-07 10:00:00
No notes
Yes
Testlist

The above should look like the following in the new file:

Code:

1;John Smith;john@mymail.com;2012-07-07 10:00:00;No notes;Yes;Testlist
2;Jane Brady;jane@bradynetworks.com;2012-04-07 10:00:00;No notes;Yes;Testlist

Some fields are blank so not sure if that is an issue.

Thanks in advance for any replies!


Art

Have a look at the paste man page. It can do this for you (including handling empty fields/lines). If you need further help, just let us know what you don't understand about what you read and the command you tried.

Hint: You will need to use - multiple times to read from standard input.

Regards,
Alister

Thank you Alister for pointing me in the right direction. I have used paste before but never looked at the "-" function. I ended up with:

Code:

 < infile paste -d";" - - - - - - - | awk '{print $1$2$3$4$5$6$7}'

I couldn't figure out how I could do it without piping it through awk but anyways problem solved!

Thanks so much for your reply!


Art

---------- Post updated at 08:20 PM ---------- Previous update was at 08:08 PM ----------

Sorry the correct script is:

Code:

< infile paste -d";" - - - - - - - | awk '{print $1$2,$3,$4$5$6$7$8$9}'

The only problem I have is that the second field "name" may or may not have a middle initial. This causes a leading space if the name does not include a middle initial. I am going to try to modify the infile first and then paste with the "-". I will post any updates in the hopes that this may help someone else.


Art

I don't understand why you are using awk. The output from paste should match the desired output presented in your original post.

Regards,
Alister

Not sure how. Just doing the best that I can with what I know. If you have a better way then by all means post it.

Thanks again!


Art

Code:

paste -sd';;;;;;\n' infile

I appreciate your input and I had no idea you could use paste like this too so thanks so much for that. The results put everything with a tab after the delimiter. I want all fields concatenated but just not the names themselves concatenated like the example I had:

Code:

1;John Smith;john@mymail.com;2012-07-07 10:00:00;No notes;Yes;Testlist; 
2;Jane Brady;jane@bradynetworks.com;2012-04-07 10:00:00;No notes;Yes;Testlist;

Actually I would like to eliminate the first field too (the record numbers portion - 1, 2 etc.). The last field should have a trailing ";". Sorry I didn't say that before. Even if I take what you had and run it through awk email addresses will have a leading space if the previous name field did not use a middle initial.

Art