awk regexp to print repetitive pattern


 
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# 1  
Old 07-15-2016
awk regexp to print repetitive pattern

How to use regexp to print out repetitive pattern in awk?
Code:
$ awk '{print $0, "-\t-\t-\t-\t-\t-\t-\t-\t-\t-\t-\t-"}'

output:
Code:
 -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -

I tried following which does not give what I want, of course.
Code:
awk '{print $0, "-\t{11}-"}'

output:
Code:
  -    {11}-

Any help, please? Thanks in advance!
# 2  
Old 07-15-2016
one way:
Code:
awk 'BEGIN{$11=OFS="-\t";print}'</dev/null

This User Gave Thanks to vgersh99 For This Post:
# 3  
Old 07-15-2016
Thanks!
Can you elaborate your script, please?

Last edited by yifangt; 07-15-2016 at 02:50 PM..
# 4  
Old 07-15-2016
It is a trick; setting the last field forces a reformatting with the OFS. (The previous fields are empty.) The order matters, OFS must be set first. Therefore I think the following is cleaner
Code:
awk 'BEGIN{OFS="-\t"; $12="-"; print}' </dev/null

Perl has the x operator
Code:
perl -e '{print "-\t"x11, "-\n"}'

In bash and zsh:
Code:
{ for i in {1..11}; do printf -- "-\t"; done; printf -- "-\n"; }


Last edited by MadeInGermany; 07-15-2016 at 04:18 PM..
This User Gave Thanks to MadeInGermany For This Post:
# 5  
Old 07-15-2016
Quote:
It is a trick; setting the last field forces a reformatting with the OFS. (The previous fields are empty.) The order matters, OFS must be set first.
Can I say there is no regexp for this case in awk, similar to your perl script ?perl -e '{print "-\t"x11, "-\n"}'
Thanks a lot!
# 6  
Old 07-15-2016
Quote:
Originally Posted by yifangt
Can I say there is no regexp for this case in awk, similar to your perl script ?perl -e '{print "-\t"x11, "-\n"}'
Thanks a lot!
No. You can say that a string argument in an awk print statement is a string; not a regular expression. If you want an ERE to select lines containing exactly 11 copies of "-\t" followed by a final "-" and only print those lines, you could try:
Code:
awk 'BEGIN{print "start"; OFS="-\t"; $12="-"; print; print "end"}'|awk '/^(-\t){11}-$/'

which uses a regex in the 2nd awk script to print just that matched line out of the three lines printed by the 1st awk script

Note that redirecting the input from /dev/null won't hurt anything, but it isn't needed in an awk script that only contains one or more BEGIN clauses.
This User Gave Thanks to Don Cragun For This Post:
# 7  
Old 07-15-2016
Thanks Don and all!
What I was doing is to combined two files (each half million lines) by a matching column, if no match (0.01%), make up the missing fields with the "-", which triggered me asking if there is regex for my purpose:
Code:
$ cat file2
XLOC_000001 TCONS_00000001 LOC_Os02g39790.2 47.273 55 24 2 3855 4016 335 385 3.60e-04  
XLOC_000001 TCONS_00000002 LOC_Os02g39790.2 47.273 55 24 2 2368 2529 335 385 2.35e-04  
XLOC_000001 TCONS_00000007 LOC_Os02g39790.2 47.273 55 24 2 3553 3714 335 385 3.09e-04  
XLOC_000001 TCONS_00000009 LOC_Os02g39790.2 47.273 55 24 2 5083 5244 335 385 2.83e-04  
XLOC_000001 TCONS_00000011 LOC_Os02g39790.2 47.273 55 24 2 2200 2361 335 385 2.28e-04   
$ cat file1
TCONS_00000001    W5GKA3_WHEAT
TCONS_00000002    W5GKA3_WHEAT
TCONS_00000011    I1IBH3_BRADI
TCONS_00000009    W5GKA3_WHEAT
TCONS_00000005    I1IBH3_BRADI
TCONS_00000006    I1IBH3_BRADI
TCONS_00000007    W5GKA3_WHEAT

Code:
$ awk 'NR==FNR {A[$2]=$0; next}; {if (A[$1]) print $0, A[$1]; else print $0, "-\t-\t-\t-\t-\t-\t-\t-\t-\t-\t-\t-" }' file2 file1
TCONS_00000001    W5GKA3_WHEAT XLOC_000001 TCONS_00000001 LOC_Os02g39790.2 47.273 55 24 2 3855 4016 335 385 3.60e-04  
TCONS_00000002    W5GKA3_WHEAT XLOC_000001 TCONS_00000002 LOC_Os02g39790.2 47.273 55 24 2 2368 2529 335 385 2.35e-04  
TCONS_00000011    I1IBH3_BRADI XLOC_000001 TCONS_00000011 LOC_Os02g39790.2 47.273 55 24 2 2200 2361 335 385 2.28e-04   
TCONS_00000009    W5GKA3_WHEAT XLOC_000001 TCONS_00000009 LOC_Os02g39790.2 47.273 55 24 2 5083 5244 335 385 2.83e-04  
TCONS_00000005    I1IBH3_BRADI -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -
TCONS_00000006    I1IBH3_BRADI -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -    -
TCONS_00000007    W5GKA3_WHEAT XLOC_000001 TCONS_00000007 LOC_Os02g39790.2 47.273 55 24 2 3553 3714 335 385 3.09e-04

Typing that long string "-\t" repetitively looks dull, and I felt dizzy counting the number of tabs while typing. I made mistakes and need re-run a couple of times to get it correct! So I thought if there is regex I could avoid the mistake.
Thanks again!

Last edited by yifangt; 07-15-2016 at 08:32 PM.. Reason: typos
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