Bash script to print the smallest floating point number in a row that is not 0


 
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# 1  
Old 10-31-2018
Bash script to print the smallest floating point number in a row that is not 0

Hello,

I have often found bash to be difficult when it comes to floating point numbers. I have data with rows of tab delimited floating point numbers. I need to find the smallest number in each row that is not 0.0. Numbers can be negative and they do not come in any particular order for a given row.

I guess I would do something like read each row into an array and then sort it but I am not quite sure if that would work with floating point numbers.

Thanks for any suggestions,

LMHmedchem
# 2  
Old 10-31-2018
With more than 300 posts you should know that posting your OS, shell, and tools' versions plus some representative input usually helps. I'm too tired to build an input sample myself...
Does it have to be bash, or are text tools like awk welcome as well?
# 3  
Old 10-31-2018
Sorry, I am a bit tired myself.

This is a some input. There could be up to 100 cols or so in theory.
Code:
1   1.83958   0.0       0.0   0.0  -0.330313
2   0.450996  0.112848  0.0   0.0   0.136161
3  22.8728    0.0       0.0   0.0   0.0

The output would be,
Code:
1  -0.330313
2   0.112848
3  22.8728

I added a row index for clarity.

At the moment I am running this under cygwin but will probably run under opensuse as well. This is my bash version,
Code:
GNU bash, version 4.1.10(4)-release (i686-pc-cygwin)

This could be with any tool I have under cygwin. I use sed and awk most frequently but I also have perl, ruby, python, etc.

LMHmedchem
# 4  
Old 11-01-2018
What output do you want if all fields are zero?

I assume that you know that sed is not a common tool for this project, and, as you said, bash isn't well known for handling floating point values. If you want to process your file entirely in shell code, ksh would be a good choice. Otherwise, as you well know, awk is perfectly suited to problems like this.

What have you tried to solve this on your own? Where are you stuck?
This User Gave Thanks to Don Cragun For This Post:
# 5  
Old 11-01-2018
Quote:
Originally Posted by Don Cragun
What output do you want if all fields are zero?

I assume that you know that sed is not a common tool for this project, and, as you said, bash isn't well known for handling floating point values. If you want to process your file entirely in shell code, ksh would be a good choice. Otherwise, as you well know, awk is perfectly suited to problems like this.

What have you tried to solve this on your own? Where are you stuck?
Sorry, I was in a pretty bad accident last night and I just got back from the Hospital. I probably won't be able to respond more completely until tomorrow. I will answer your questions in my next post.

Thanks,

LMHmedchem
This User Gave Thanks to LMHmedchem For This Post:
# 6  
Old 11-01-2018
I'm sorry to hear about your accident. Take the time you need to recover; we'll be ready to help when you get back to us.
These 3 Users Gave Thanks to Don Cragun For This Post:
# 7  
Old 11-02-2018
Quote:
Originally Posted by Don Cragun
I'm sorry to hear about your accident. Take the time you need to recover; we'll be ready to help when you get back to us.
Thanks, this board is always a great help.

For data like,
Code:
index	name	col_1	col_2	col_3	col_4	col_5
1	name_1	6.55903	0	0	0	3.44097
2	name_2	6.73342	0	4.45826	0	5.80832
3	name_3	6.7876	0	9.04868	0	8.16372
4	name_4	7.07704	0	2.06362	-0.6363	0.6673
5	name_5	0	13.15	0	10.4517	3.39833

This version seems to work,
Code:
#! /bin/sh

# assumes that the input file has a header row
# assumes that the first column is the index and the second column is a name
# assumes that all columns after the first two contain data

# input file name
input_file=$1
# output file name
output_file=$2

awk ' NR>1 { split($0, line_array, "\t");
             id=line_array[1];
             name=line_array[2];
             delete line_array[1];
             delete line_array[2];
             asort(line_array);
             for(x in line_array) {
                if(line_array[x] != 0) { print id "\t" name "\t" line_array[x];  break; }
             }
             delete line_array;
           }' $input_file > $output_file

giving the output,
Code:
1	name_1	3.44097
2	name_2	4.45826
3	name_3	6.7876
4	name_4	-0.6363
5	name_5	3.39833

In short, it parses each row into an array with split(), assigns the first two positions to the id and name variables, and then deletes the first two positions. The array is then sorted with asort(). Finally the array is checked and the first element that is not 0 is printed along with the name and index. I believe that this gives me the smallest non-zero number.

I don't know the type that is used for the array, so I don't know if the above will work if 0 in the input file is actually 0.0, or 0.0000, etc. It is not really possible for input rows to be all 0, but I guess that should be trapped. I didn't think that awk had asort(). I think the cygwin actually calls gawk for awk commands but I'm not sure.

Will this work as I have it now?

LMHmedchem

Last edited by LMHmedchem; 11-02-2018 at 10:29 PM..
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