Shell Programming and Scripting

try this code:

Code:

awk '
{
while ( $0 ~ "  " )
{
sub("  ", " ", $0)
}  print }' test |  sed "s/ /\~/g;" >result1
awk '
{
while ( $0 ~ "  " )
{
sub("  ", " ", $0)
}  print }' result1 |  sed "s/ /\~/g;" |sed "s/\(^.*\~..\~.*\)\(\~..\~\)\(.*\)\(\~.....$\)/\3/g" >result2
sed 's/~/ /g' result2>result3
count=0
while read line; do
count=`echo $count+1|bc`
export value=${count}P
sed -n "$value" result2 |read val
sed -n "$value" result1 | read res1
echo $res1 | sed "s/$val/$line/g"
done <result3

Well, Forum members, This might be a bit clumsy but thats the best i could get. If there is a better way please let me know.

even if there are mulitple spaces in between fields i just want one tilde

Code:

sed 's/  */~/g' file

Not the two whitespace between / and *

This will match with a single space as well
*=0 or more

I'd want more specifications before I could whip up a good script/program. For example, I see it could be lined up. If everything's fixed width, you could just use a cut command to break each line up into manageable bits and then just output the tilde's. Are their always the same number of fields? Are fields 1, 2, 5, 7, and 8 always two digit fields? Can other fields besides 1 and 3 be blank?

I'd do something like read the entire line into an array. I'd check each of the array elements to see if they match rules (like the two digit fields) and put everything in the right place. The only wrench is that third field and what might be in it.

So the basic answer here is, insufficient specifications. Sorry

Carl

This was the requirement note from the OP
Thats is the reason I had

<whitespace><whitespace>*

to match both single and multiple whitespaces