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To search distinct special char in file

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# 1  
Old 09-03-2013
To search distinct special char in file
hi,

i need to search distinct special character from a file which is a pipe delimited from a specific column

for eg:
Code:
input file.txt
aa|bb|cc|$abc
aa|bb|ccc|#abol
bb|xss|ddd|$xyz
nn|yyy|qqq|=qqqq
abe|qqq|yyy|=aaa
aaa|yyy|zzzz|#aaaa
.
.
.


my desired output
$
#
=

i know which column will have the special character for eg here col is 4th column
# 2  
Old 09-03-2013
Which distinct characters are you looking for...
# 3  
Old 09-03-2013
I think below command give you idea.

Code:
cut -f4 -d'|' filename | cut -c1

For uniqness.

Code:
cut -f4 -d'|' filename | cut -c1 | sort -u

Last edited by learnbash; 09-03-2013 at 03:42 PM.. Reason: added code
# 4  
Old 09-03-2013
If what you want is the 1st occurrence of the 1st character in field 4 in your file, the following should be a little more efficient than learnbash's suggestion:
Code:
awk -F'|' '!((c = substr($4,1,1)) in s) {s[c];print c}' file.txt

Otherwise, as shamrock said, we need to know what you mean by special, where in field 4 the special character can appear, and whether there can be more than one special character in field 4 in any line in your input file.

If you want to try the above awk script on a Solaris/SunOS system, use /usr/xpg4/bin/awk, /usr/xpg6/bin/awk, or nawk instead of awk.
# 5  
Old 09-03-2013
Hi,

i would like to take the distinct special char in 4th field where in it can occur in 4th filed any where
Code:
for my fourth fieldeg:
$aab$c#
$$abc.c=
.
.
.

output should be distinct special char like (!@#$%^&*()_",:Smilie other than numbers and characters
Code:
$#.=

# 6  
Old 09-03-2013
Try this for non alnum chars in field 4:
Code:
sed -r 's/([^|]*\|){3}//;s/[[:alnum:]]*$//' file
$
#
$
=
=
#

EDIT: Or, if any position in field 4 is possible:
Code:
sed -r 's/([^|]*\|){3}//;s/^[[:alnum:]]*//;s/[[:alnum:]]*$//' file
$
#
$
=
=
#

# 7  
Old 09-03-2013
Like Don's sample, this runs on | separated field #4,
but this sample deletes the characters in the character set [a-zA-Z0-9]
Code:
awk -F"|" '{gsub("[a-zA-Z0-9]","",$4); print $4}' file

It is also possible to reverse the character set by a leading ^ followed by the special characters:
Code:
awk -F"|" '{gsub("[^-=!@#$%^&*()_]","",$4); print $4}' file

NB a - in the character set should be first, otherwise it would be interpreted as a range...
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