UNIX for Beginners Questions & Answers

Output from "my" proposal:

Code:

2017/02/01        10        20        30        70
2017/01/01        10        20        40

So - please explain in detail WHAT goes wrong in WHICH way. "then it fails" doesn't really help.

Booo,
I apologize... The output above was produced by changing the 6th row in your sample input file to the line you provided in post #6, instead of by adding that line as a new 7th row. When I add that new line to your original sample data, the output produced by my suggestion is:

Code:

		a	b	c	d
2017/01/01	10	20	40	
2017/02/01	10	20	30	30

with my suggested code, with that input file, the output will always be in this order.

When I feed that input to the code RudiC provided, I get the output:

Code:

                   d         a         b         c
2017/01/01                  10        20        40
2017/02/01        30        10        20        30

but the order of the last four columns and the order of the rows may vary with different versions of awk (because the order in which items in an array are processed by for(index in array_name) is not specified by the standards). Note that the output RudiC got using the version of awk on his system produced output with the order of the last four columns AND the order of the rows printed was different than what I got on my system, but the numeric values in the table of output values displayed was identical using both my suggestion and his suggestion (on both of our systems). Although it may be hard to tell looking at the output he provided in post #8 since he didn't include the header line in the output.

As RudiC said, just saying that "it fails" without specifying whose suggested code you're running and without specifying what is wrong with the output produced is not at all helpful.

I apologize - just didn't capture the entire output, which reads

Code:

                   a         b         c         d
2017/02/01        10        20        30        70
2017/01/01        10        20        40

Can we replace the empty spaces in the column to zero. If its empty while sending as an excel format the empty column is copied by adjacent column data.

Yes. You can do that by changing 1 character in my suggestion or by adding 2 characters (4 if you add spaces around arithmetic operators) to either of our suggestions.

Can we know which of our suggestions you're using?

Can we know what fails in the suggestions that have been provided for you? (In other words, please explain in what way the suggestions you were given did not do what you requested in the requirements you stated before adding your new requirement in post #11?)

Can you try to modify the code we have supplied instead of expecting us to change our code for you every time you change your requirements? If you can't get it to work, show us what you have a tried an we'll be glad to help you finish it.

Thanks Don. I tried to change the OFS value but it didn't work. I am not sure how to fix this one.

I asked three questions in post #12 in this thread. You answered one of them (although I have no idea why you thought changing the output field separator would change the value of a field from an empty string into a numeric string with value 0). We know that you understand how both of our suggestions work (since you're asking questions here to learn how to solve your problem and you haven't asked any questions about how the suggested awk scripts work). At least we hope that you understand that this forum is here to help you learn how to use BSD, Linux, and UNIX system shell scripting to solve your own problems; not to act as your unpaid programming staff.

If you're unwilling to tell us how our suggestions failed to meet your stated requirements and you aren't even willing to tell us which of our suggestions you're trying to get to work, why should we waste any more time trying to help you?

Please help us help you by answering the questions we have asked!