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Trouble reading from a tab delimited excel file

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# 1  
Old 06-02-2016
Trouble reading from a tab delimited excel file
So I have a file1.txt that is tab delimited:

e.g.
Code:
FIELD1      FIELD2     FIELD3                                 FIELD4         FIELD5
9545641	123	"Neighbor and Labrador,Canada"	54895	'CANADA'
9456465	456	"Neighbor and Labrador,Canada"	54893	'CANADA'
8746512	789	"Neighbor and Labrador,Canada"	54893	'CANADA'

I'm trying to grab its contents by field and display it on the cmd line. I use this command:

Code:
awk '{print ""$1","$2","$3","$4","$5""}' file1.txt

But what ends up happening is that it thinks that the space between Neighbor[]and so it cuts off the field. Is ther eanother way to grab each field. I've been stuck for a while.
# 2  
Old 06-02-2016
If it is strictly tab-separated then you can change the default field separator (whitespace) to tab
Code:
awk -F "\t" ...

and it will not treat space characters as field separator.
But a tab within quotes is still a field separator...
# 3  
Old 06-02-2016
Another problem that will arise if you set the field separator to a tab is that the quotation marks will become part of the data.
You might use sed or vi to remove all the quotation marks, and the apostrophes around CANADA before processing the file.
# 4  
Old 06-02-2016
Quote:
Originally Posted by dan139
So I have a file1.txt that is tab delimited:

e.g.
Code:
FIELD1      FIELD2     FIELD3                                 FIELD4         FIELD5
9545641    123    "Neighbor and Labrador,Canada"    54895    'CANADA'
9456465    456    "Neighbor and Labrador,Canada"    54893    'CANADA'
8746512    789    "Neighbor and Labrador,Canada"    54893    'CANADA'

I'm trying to grab its contents by field and display it on the cmd line. I use this command:
Code:
awk '{print ""$1","$2","$3","$4","$5""}' file1.txt

But what ends up happening is that it thinks that the space between Neighbor[]and so it cuts off the field. Is ther eanother way to grab each field. I've been stuck for a while.
Hello dan139,

Off course it is expected behavior as default field separator for awk is space. So could you please try following and let me know how it goes, though I am not at all sure about your complete requirement.
Code:
 awk -F"\"" '{print $1}'  Input_file

So here I am making field separator as " by doing -F"\"", so likewise you could print the other fields of the line too, hope this helps you.

Thanks,
R. Singh
# 5  
Old 06-02-2016
Thank you works perfectly with this line:
Code:
awk -F '\t' '{print ""$1","$2","$3","$4","$5""}' file1.txt

However I'm trying to wrap the statement like
Code:
(8746512,789,"Neighbor and Labrador,Canada",54893,'CANADA');

But when I execute this:
Code:
awk -F '\t' '{print "("$1","$2","$3","$4","$5");"}' file1.txt

The output becomes:
Code:
);(8746512,789,"Neighbor and Labrador,Canada",54893,'CANADA'

for most of the entries. any way to fix this?
# 6  
Old 06-02-2016
Code:
 awk -F '\t' '{print "(" $1,$2,$3,$4,$5 ");"}' OFS=, myFile

# 7  
Old 06-02-2016
Quote:
Originally Posted by vgersh99
Code:
 awk -F '\t' '{print "(" $1,$2,$3,$4,$5 ");"}' OFS=, myFile

I get the same exact output as before. There's no change.
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