Shell Programming and Scripting

Hi guys,

I need help in extracting one column of numbers from two different files and display it in a output file. In specific, I want to extrac the column no.2 ($2) from each file, file1.txt, file2.txt. Then place both extracted columns in a one file, out.txt.

the line command I use to call the AWK code and the files is this:
awk -f code.awk file1.txt file2.txt > out.txt

code.awk I have is (and is worng! ):
#Extracting columns
#
BEGIN {}
#{print $2 < file1.txt , $2<file2.txt}
END {}

I appreciate a lot your kind help,

solracq,

Do you want the columns side by side or one after another in the output. Can you show how the output looks like.

most likely you'll end up with a solution involving paste and awk.

If each file has two columns the command would be

If your shell supports it:

Code:

paste <(cut -f2 file1.txt) <(cut -f2 file2.txt)

If you can't get the <(...) syntax to work, you will need temporary files, at least for one of the cuts.

Code:

cut -f2 file1.txt >tmp
cut -f2 file2.txt | paste tmp -

cut and paste normally work on tab-delimited input; if you have variable amounts of spaces as separators, awk is definitely the way to go.

Pure awk:

side by side:

Code:

 awk 'NR==FNR{a[NR]=$2; next} {print a[FNR], $2}' file1 file2

concatenated on one column:

Code:

 awk '{print $2}' file1 file2

hi Shamrock,

the output should be the column#2 of file 1, Tab, the column #2 of file 2

file1
1 2
2 3
3 4

file2
5 8
6 9
7 10

output
2 8
3 9
4 10

thanks!,
solracq

ripat,

IT WORKS...!
THANKS A LOT !!!

solracq
p.s. also thx to to the ppl who answered my question!