Shell Programming and Scripting

Hi,

I have the following data in the format as shown (note: there are more than 1 blank spaces between each field and the spaces are not uniform, meaning there can be one blank space between field1 and field2 and 3 spaces between field3 and field4, in this example, # are the spaces in between the fields):
________________________________________
num1a###num2a#num3a#####num4a##num5a
num1b###num2b##########num4b#######
#######num2c#num3c#####num4c##num5c
#######num2d#num3d#####num4d##num5d
num1e###num2e#num3e#####num4e##num5e
num1f########################num5f
________________________________________

i need to include ; as the field delimiter and the required output is:
________________________________________
num1a;num2a;num3a;num4a;num5a
num1b;num2b;;num4b;
;num2c;num3c;num4c;num5c
;num2d;num3d;num4d;num5d
num1e;num2e;num3e;num4e;num5e
num1f;;;;num5f
________________________________________

I tried using
sed -e 's/ */;/g'
but it will take consecutive blank fields as one blank field. Can anyone help?

From what you are saying and given your output

num1f;;;;num5f

Code:

sed -e 's/[ ][ ]*/;/g'

I tried using
sed -e 's/ */;/g'
but it will take consecutive blank fields as one blank field. Can anyone help?


So, shouldnt it take the consecutive blank fields and convert it to ; ?

What's the output you are getting with your sed script ?

Do you mean, for each space encountered, you want to replace it with a ;

Try this

Code:

tr '[:space]' ';' < inputfile

Vino

Hi,

num1f;;;;num5f
is my required output.
But when I use sed -e 's/ */;/g', my output is:
num1f;num5f

I hope I am clear with my description

sed 's/ /;/g' file
tr ' ' ';' < file

Hi,

No, I only need one ; in between each field. But however, there can be one space or 2 spaces in between 2 fields.

input:
field1[space][space][space]field2[space][space]field3[space]field4
field1[space][space][space]emptyfield[space][space]emptyfield[space]field4

required output:
field1;field2;field3;field4
field1;;;field4

but from the script that I have tried, I get:
field1;field2;field3;field4
field1;field4

what's the difference between '[space]' and 'emptyfield'?

the problem here is the command will take empty field as part of the space(delimiter) and the output will skip the empty field.