Shell Programming and Scripting

Folks, I am wondering if anyone solve this problem.
What I want to know is,
1. Delete all white spaces including leading blank space in each line (e.g. line 2), and replace such spaces by single tab except leading blank space

2. Then, align all columns to the right. But, output white space between columns should be identified by single tab, not white space, not multiple tab.

<input>
1990 8 9 2.31 3.12 4.343 112.113 0.123
1992 9 10 1.11 3.33 2.12 1.23 0.11
2011 10 11 2.56 7.23 3.11 2.33 0.1


Thanks,

The first one is simple...

Code:

$ awk -v OFS="\t" '$1=$1' file1
1990    8       9       2.31    3.12    4.343   112.113 0.123
1992    9       10      1.11    3.33    2.12    1.23    0.11
2011    10      11      2.56    7.23    3.11    2.33    0.1

But the second one is impossible. If you want to right-align, then you have to pad with something, e.g. spaces...

Code:

$ awk -v OFS="\t" '{for(i=1;i<=NF;i++)$i=sprintf("%7s",$i);print}' file1
   1990       8       9    2.31    3.12   4.343 112.113   0.123
   1992       9      10    1.11    3.33    2.12    1.23    0.11
   2011      10      11    2.56    7.23    3.11    2.33     0.1