Shell Programming and Scripting

Data in File

ABCEFGHI:123
ABCZYEEFI:123
ABCFGDEF:123
ABCEERRRRREFGHI:123

Expected Format

1 ABC DEFGHIFE 123
2 ABCZYE DEFI 123
3 ABCFGD DEF 123
4 ABCEERRRRR DEFGHI 123

However when i enter the following command:

awk 'BEGIN {FS=":"}{printf("%u %s\t%s\t%s\n", NR, $1, $2, $3)} END {print "End List"}' data.txt

Actual Output

1 ABC DEFGHIFE 123
2 ABCZYE DEFI 123
3 ABCFGD DEF 123
4 ABCEERRRRR DEFGHI 123

how can i set the width of each column?

get rid of the tabs and use the field width within printf. check the man page for details.

ie:

Code:

printf "%20s\n" blah

Code:

     Field Width:
             An optional digit string specifying a field width; if the output
             string has fewer characters than the field width it will be blank-
             padded on the left (or right, if the left-adjustment indicator has
             been given) to make up the field width (note that a leading zero is
             a flag, but an embedded zero is part of a field width);

also - please use the code tags around your code/data. That way we do not see smiley
faces in the middle of your data.

thank you very much.