Shell Programming and Scripting

Hi -

I have a file with contents as below.

12.1 a.txt
12.1 b.txt
12.1 c.txt
13.2 a.txt
13.2 d.txt
14.3 f.txt
15.4 a.txt
15.4 b.txt
15.4 z.txt

I need to print the contents like this.

12.1 a.txt
<&nbsp><&nbsp><&nbsp>b.txt
<&nbsp><&nbsp><&nbsp>c.txt

13.2 a.txt
<&nbsp><&nbsp><&nbsp>d.txt

14.3 f.txt

15.4 a.txt
<&nbsp><&nbsp><&nbsp>b.txt
<&nbsp><&nbsp><&nbsp>z.txt

I think this can be done using awk. Any suggeestions please? Thanks in advance.

Something like this?

Code:

awk 's==$1{print "<&nbsp><&nbsp><&nbsp>" $2;next}{s=$1;print}' file

Regards

Thanks Franklin... It works.. But. in <&nbsp> place I need tab character. I tried. but with three or more lines and still I could not be successful.

If possible can you explain the code too! It is single line and almost it does my work perfectly. I wrote seven line code. []

Thanks a lot.

Code:

awk 's==$1{printf("\t\t\t%s\n", $2);next}{s=$1;print}' file

regards

Superb... It's great. I got it.... Thanks a lot your timely help Franklin

that works.. how does it know which line to skip?